


The Heart is All That It Contains

by lbswasp



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Lu Ten Lives, Arranged Marriage, F/M, Letters, Politics, Romance, Zutara Week, Zutara Week 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:14:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25523449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lbswasp/pseuds/lbswasp
Summary: Lu Ten survives the siege of Ba Sing Se, and Iroh returns home to depose the usurping Ozai. Fire Lord Iroh offers his niece and nephew to the Earth Kingdom and the Water Tribes to ensure peace - and Katara chooses Zuko.A Zutara Week 2020 story that expands on Dyce's "Fire On The Ice" by adding politics and drama.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 86
Kudos: 312
Collections: Zutara Week 2020





	1. Reunion

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Fire On The Ice](https://archiveofourown.org/works/956643) by [Dyce](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dyce/pseuds/Dyce). 



> This is very much inspired by Dyce’s [“Fire On The Ice”](https://archiveofourown.org/works/956643), which is one of my favourite Zutara fics. My only complaint about it is that it’s so short! I’ve long wanted to expand on it, to write more about the years between Katara and Zuko’s betrothal and their wedding, and about their years together before their son finds Aang in the iceberg. This year’s Zutara week challenge seemed like as good a time as any to dive into this world.
> 
> Some parts of this fic are taken from “Fire On The Ice”, and I beg your indulgence for them. Why mess with perfection?
> 
> The crew of the Wani a la [MuffinLance](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24322483) make a brief appearance here. They may make a longer appearance later.
> 
> I mess with the timeline a little here with regards to Zuko’s protest and banishment, and of course Lu Ten lives now. Hopefully it makes sense though!

Iroh wasn’t sure this counted as a reunion. _He’s had a haircut,_ was all he could think as he stared down at Lu Ten, lying heavily bandaged on the hospital bed. It was an inane thought, but faced with his son fighting for his life, it was all he could think.

“We had to cut his hair, general,” said one of the doctors nervously. “It was getting in the way. However, we saved his phoenix tail for you.”

The doctor held out his trembling hand and offered Iroh his son’s hair, and Iroh took it because he couldn’t think of anything else to do.

“Leave us,” he rasped, and the doctors and nurses fled. Iroh waved his hand at his aide-de-camps. “You too.”

“But, general, there are orders from the Capital. Ba Sing Se must fall. You must get through the walls.”

“Out! Now!” Iroh roared, sparks flying along his breath, and his aides finally fled.

Iroh was left alone with his son, watching as Lu Ten’s chest shuddered with every breath.

“My son,” he murmured. “Oh, my son. What have we done?”

The fugue his mind had been in since Earth Kingdom assassins had slaughtered his wife was finally lifting, and all around him all Iroh could hear was pain. The shrieks and cries of the young men and women of the Fire Nation who he’d brought here to _die_ , for what?

For domination over the earth? That wasn’t what he wanted. What he’d learned. The four elements should be in harmony. None were stronger than the other, and none should be treated as such.

Iroh reached out and slipped his hand into Lu Ten’s, grateful to feel its warmth. His son wasn’t dead, though so many others were. 

“Father,” Lu Ten croaked, his eyes opening just barely. “I’m sorry father. I failed you.”

“My son,” Iroh gasped, stretching to grab a pitcher of water to offer Lu Ten without having to let go of his hand. “You haven’t failed me, my boy,” he said as he held the pitcher to Lu Ten’s lips.

“But I did, father. I led my men straight into a massacre. Their deaths are my fault.”

“No, Lu Ten. Their deaths are my fault. The commands were mine.”

* * *

“I’m not sure the commands were yours, General,” his aide said softly as they watched the camp being dismantled. White flags had been posted all around the camp, and the trebuchets and ranged weapons had been the first things to be removed from beneath the walls of Ba Sing Se. The city’s walls were topped with earthbenders nonetheless, and Iroh hoped they’d believed his message that they were leaving. That the siege was over. That after 600 days, the Fire Nation Army was going home. Despite the orders to the contrary, the general could no longer justify the cost of the fight. He was taking his men home. He’d sort out the politics when he reached the Capital, and traded his general’s sash for his Crown Prince’s flame.

“It was your chop,” the aide said when Iroh made a questioning noise, “but I didn’t recognise the handwriting, and I don’t remember this order coming through as part of our commands from the Capital. I would have questioned such an order, sir. The order required the sacrifice of the entire 41st Division.”

Iroh raised an eyebrow. “The entire Division?”

The aide nodded. “Every man of them — including their commander, Lu Ten, who had just been transferred into that Division. Another order I don’t remember seeing pass across your desk.”

Iroh felt the fire inside him flare. He trusted his aide. They’d been at war together for years now, and his aide had proven himself time and time again to be a loyal, intelligent man who had a good eye for strategy and tactics. His aide was suggesting that something was wrong, that there was a bigger issue here, and Iroh was minded to trust the man.

“You have...friends, do you not? Back in the Capital? Friends who could find out where such orders came from?”

“I do, General.”

“Then find out. By the time we reach the Capital, I want to know exactly how it came for my non-bending son to be at the head of a Division of non-benders who were ordered straight into a slaughter.”

Iroh suspected he knew, and he’d need the journey home to marshall his energy for the fight that was to come.

He tore his eyes away from the walls of Ba Sing Se, the limbs of dead Fire Nation soldiers still visible from where the earthbenders had used them to repair the parts of the wall that the Fire Nation had been able to damage, and turned to lead his people home.

* * *

It may have been the pain he was pushing through, but it sounded like Lieutenant Jee’s armour was creaking in a chiding manner. _I should still be in bed,_ Zuko thought, then shook the thought away. Such thoughts were weak. Such thoughts were why he had been punished.

The Western Air Temple was abandoned, as Zuko had expected. Scattered bits of old nests showed that the only creatures who had lived there in a long time were wild animals, and even then none of the nests or tracks looked fresh.

“Your highness,” saluted Jee. “We have searched the temple. Twice. There is no one here.” _You’ve wasted our time and we hate you,_ Zuko interpreted the man’s voice as saying. _We hate that we have been sent into exile with this honourless weakling child._

Zuko turned to look over the ledge of the temple at the view. The clouds in the canyon constantly shifted and parted as the currents leapt and spun over each other. Even up here, right at the very top of the canyon, their balloon had struggled to land. 

This was not a place that you were meant to get to unless you were part of the Air Nation. Through his shame and pain, Zuko realised that much. This was a holy place. And he didn’t belong here.

“The sun is setting,” Zuko said finally. “We will shelter here tonight, and rejoin the Wani in the morning. Better than trying to navigate those air currents in the dark.” He turned and led his men into the temple, hoping to find a room that would provide shelter from the night.

Behind him, the creak of Lieutenant Jee’s armour sounded approving.

* * *

Iroh bared his teeth as the smoke cleared. The Agni Kai was over. Ozai was dead. His younger brother had been a talented firebender, but he’d only been a firebender. He hadn’t understood that there were elements other than Fire that had useful methods. He hadn’t trained with the dragons. He hadn’t wanted to explore the world; to learn its secrets and its wonders. He’d just wanted to control it.

Many in the watching crowd probably thought the expression on Iroh’s face was a smile. 

It was not.

He looked at the smouldering remains of the creature who used to be his brother, and turned away, walking to where Lu Ten was sitting with his little cousin. Azula’s eyes were full of tears, and Iroh bowed to her. “I am sorry for what I had to do, my niece,” he said. “But your father would have killed us all.”

“I hate you,” she hissed, but stood with a smile on her face, her features schooled to innocence and refused to let her tears fall, and Iroh made a mental note to try and find Ursa as fast as possible. His instincts warned him that Azula was dangerous, for all that she was a little girl. 

He was disappointed not to see the third of the children there. 

“Still nothing?” he asked his generals later, when they came to congratulate their new Fire Lord on his victory.

They shook their heads, and not for the last time, Fire Lord Iroh wondered where on earth his nephew had gone.

* * *

Katara was ten, sitting with Gran Gran and sewing a new tunic for her father, when the Fire Nation ship arrived. She dropped her work and ran to her father, reminded of the last ship, but this time there was no attack. The ship halted out of range of the village, and a single small boat with only a few men on it approached, under the white flag that Gran Gran whispered meant peace.

The man who stepped off the boat was not armored, and he carried a single sword at his hip. This, Katara was old enough to know, was a good sign. No firebender carried weapons, so this man couldn't be a bender.

Behind the man another small boat was lowered from the ship, followed by two more. Katara feared this was the start of an invasion, but as the people made it to the shore, Katara realised who they were. 

It was their missing Tribe Members, those taken in the last few sets of raids. Or most of them, of course.

The formerly-missing Water Tribe Members gave the Fire Nation man a wide berth as they approached the village, and soon the crisp morning was full of cries of joy as friends and families were reunited — and cries of despair when friends and families learned that this was all who would be returning. That many of their people — too many of their people — had been used up and burned up by the Fire Nation in it’s mad quest for control.

He was a diplomat, the Fire Nation man said, when Hakoda grudgingly invited him inside the meeting house where all the Tribe gathered to hear. For the first time, Katara and Sokka were called to sit beside their father as his heirs — there hadn't been any kind of formal meeting since they were babies. 

(The man's eyes passed over Katara thoughtfully, and she shivered and resisted the urge to hide behind Sokka.) 

He introduced himself as Piandao, and explained that he had come to offer reparations to the Southern Water Tribe for its losses during the war.

Hakoda, colder and angrier than Katara had ever seen him, asked what _reparations_ the Fire Lord thought adequate for the loss of three-quarters of his Tribe. For the waterbenders snatched away, for the women taken to serve the soldiers who slaughtered their husbands and children. For Hakoda's wife, and the mother of his children. What could be enough?

Piandao bowed his head, and Katara thought he looked sad. The Fire Lord could not restore life to the dead, but he offered to restore communication between the Water Tribes of the Northern and Southern regions. Two of the great metal ships would be placed at the disposal of each Tribe, with sailors to teach the mastery of them. The Fire Lord would fuel the ships for three years, or have them modified so they could be propelled by waterbenders. In this way, he hoped, the Southern Water Tribe would find the new blood it needed to rebuild. Trade goods and gold would be on the ships, Piandao added, to ease the privations caused by the war, but they were not meant to _pay_ for the lives lost.

“Nothing can pay for the lives lost, as lives are above value,” Piandao said. “The Fire Lord regrets the years of pain and suffering his family have caused, and is truly sorry that he did not come to his senses earlier. His own son was badly wounded in the war, and even now walks only with difficulty. His nephew had been banished by the previous Fire Lord for speaking out in defence of innocent lives, and only recently has Prince Zuko been found and returned to his mother. Fire Lord Iroh wishes for no more sons and daughters to be lost to conflict between nations. For no more young people to suffer for the follies of old men. However, the Northern Water Tribe is being...stubborn.”

Beside her, Katara heard Gran Gran snort softly.

“The Fire Lord hopes that by restoring contact between the Water Tribes that the Northern Water Tribe may divert their thoughts to peace and rebuilding, instead of vengeance and war.”

“And what’s to ensure that this peace and rebuilding lasts?” Hakoda asked. “What ensures that the Fire Nation won’t just rise up again in a few more years — or even generations from now?”

“We cannot stop the actions of our descendents, no more than we can undo the actions of our ancestors,” Piandao said. “But we can work to repair the damage, and work to ensure that these actions do not happen again. To this end, Fire Lord Iroh would betroth his nephew, second in line for the throne, to your daughter. He will be sent to live at the South Pole as hostage and blood-price for their dead, and to ensure the Fire Nation’s good behaviour.”

The meeting exploded into noise, and it was Sokka’s youthful voice ringing high above the hubbub that finally quieted the crowd. "Katara's only ten! She can't marry anyone!"

Piandao inclined his head politely, as if Sokka were a grown man and worthy of respect. "And Prince Zuko is only twelve. But they will both get older. If a formal betrothal can be agreed upon, he will be sent here at such time as Katara is considered to be of an age to be married. I do not know what your customs are — "

"Sixteen," Hakoda said uncertainly. "Sixteen is marrying age within the Water Tribe, for both boys and girls. But — "

"Good." Piandao looked relieved. "It is fourteen in the Earth Kingdom — parts of it, at least. Can you imagine? So young! No, sixteen is better. Zuko will be eighteen then, and a man by the standards of the Fire Nation."

"But we do not practice arranged marriage in the Southern Water Tribe," Hakoda said flatly.

Piandao looked surprised... no, stunned. "But... but the Northern Water Tribe — "

To Katara's surprise, Gran Gran spoke up. "The Northern Water Tribe treats its women as little more than chattel," she said grimly. "I was born in the north, young man. I came to the Southern Water Tribe to escape just such an arranged marriage, because here I could choose for myself. I will not have my granddaughter bound as I was. Does the chief of the Northern Water Tribe have no daughters?"

"He does," Piandao admitted. "But it seems that the girl is his only heir... and already betrothed. He suggested that the Southern Water Tribe, having suffered more at the hands of the Fire Nation..."

"That _we_ should have the honour of accepting a young fire viper into our midst. How generous," Gran Gran said dryly.

Hakoda inclined his head. "Tell your Fire Lord that we must decline his offer, according to our own laws. Katara will choose her own husband, when she is old enough to do so. I cannot give her to your prince as if she were a polar dog or a new spear. She belongs to herself."

“The Fire Lord will not be pleased,” Piandao said. “He is a kind man, but he is still the Fire Lord. He expects his wishes to be met. He is exceedingly fond of his nephew, and to have his offer spurned like this...I am unsure of what the consequences will be.”

Katara shivered. Would the war start again? Would more soldiers come? Would she be dragged onto one of their ships as she'd begun to understand would one day have been her fate?

Hakoda spread his hands. "We are not unwilling to negotiate with the Fire Lord," he said slowly. "But I do not have the power, under law, to give him what he asks."

Katara swallowed hard and lifted her head. Her mother had been brave, telling her daughter that everything was all right while her death stood over her. She had given her life for Katara. If Katara had to give that life for her Tribe, then she would. She would make her mother proud. "But I do."

An eerie silence fell. Her father stared at her and croaked, "What?"

Katara cleared her throat, blushing under all those staring adult eyes. "But I do have the power under law," she repeated, a little more confidently. "Don't I?"

"Katara, you don't know what you are saying!" Her father sounded horrified. "You can't — "

"Yes, I do. That man says that the Fire Lord will be angry if we won't make peace and take his nephew." Katara pointed, not caring if it was rude. "The war might start again. I don't want Fire Nation soldiers coming to our Tribe ever again. So I'll marry the stupid prince."

"No, Katara!" Gran Gran protested, while Sokka gibbered in horror. "You cannot understand what it would mean — "

"YES I CAN!" To her own surprise, Katara realized she was on her feet, standing over the seated adults and screaming. "I'm not a baby! I know what would happen to us if the war started again! I know what would happen to me! I know what happened to the women who came back on this man’s ship. I have eyes. I'm not going to let my tribe lose anyone else and I'd rather one firebender than _a whole ship full of them taking turns._ "

The ugly words seemed to hang in the air, muffled gasps and sobs coming from all around her. Gran Gran suddenly looked small and crumpled. Sokka was white as snow, and her father was crying silently. 

"Katara," he said softly. "You don't have to... there must be some other way — "

She turned to see what the Fire Nation diplomat and the soldiers thought of what she'd said. To her surprise, there were tears in more than one pair of golden eyes. Silently Piandao rose, the soldiers with him, and then they dropped to their knees before a trembling little girl in shabby blue, bowing until their foreheads touched the floor.

"Your daughter does you honour, Chief Hakoda," Piandao said softly, rising to sit again. "She may not claim the rank of a princess, but I have seen few more worthy of it." He met Katara's eyes, and he looked nice again. "You are right, Lady Katara," he said gently. "You are right. If you do this, your tribe will be safe from the Fire Nation for all your life — and longer, most likely. Even those who speak out against peace, and there are many, must hesitate to sacrifice a hostage as important as the Fire Lord's own beloved nephew."

Katara swallowed hard and sat down with a bump. "What's he like?" she asked nervously. "Prince Zuko, I mean. Do you know him at all?"

"I was his sword-master," the diplomat said, surprising her. "I know him well. I would not hesitate to betroth my own daughter to him, if I had one, for I know him to be an honourable boy with a gentle spirit. He has a temper," he added thoughtfully, "but it is all flash and blaze. He will flare up and shout and then forget all about it in an hour."

Katara nodded slowly. "Sokka's like that." Sokka was being all but sat on, she saw, glancing behind her, with their father’s hand firmly over his mouth. "I... I think I could manage that." It might not be true, of course, but the suggestion that Piandao would let his own daughter marry this Zuko was very comforting. "But... if you're his sword-master, does that mean he's not a firebender? I thought firebenders never used weapons."

"They do not, as a rule. Zuko is an exception." Piandao leaned a little closer, lowering his voice conspiratorially. “Zuko is much like his uncle, interested in all things, not just what is traditionally known by firebenders. And Lu Ten is not a firebender. He is a fine swordsman, and Zuko has long idolised his older cousin. So Zuko learned on his own, practising as well as he could, until his cousin discovered him and brought him to me to, in the prince’s own words, ‘stop this little idiot from cutting off his own foot.’”

Katara felt a pang of kinship with Zuko. She was the only waterbender left within the Southern Water Tribe, and she understood his determination to learn something even if there was no one to teach her.

“It may not be a bad idea to have a firebender here,” Gran Gran said softly. “After a certain time, the herbs I can offer are more dangerous to the woman than to the child she is carrying. Several of the women who have been returned to us are past that point, and unless you want to leave the newborns outside to die in the cold...it is likely that we will need someone around in a few years who knows how to control fire.”

Piandao looked said and defeated. “We will, of course, provide for these women and their children for as long as they live. We ask that they not be treated with shame for what we did to them.”

“We don’t treat our women with shame for surviving the unsurvivable,” Hakoda said. “Which is why I am loath to welcome a member of the Fire Nation into our Tribe — let alone a boy from the Royal Family who were the ones who waged this war in the first place.”

“You don’t have the right to refuse the offer though,” Katara said, trying not to let her voice wobble as she argued with her father in front of everyone. “I am the only one who can give my hand in marriage. And I accept the offer, if it will save everyone in our tribe.”

“Hakoda, you can’t be _serious!_ ” Bato exclaimed, and the Southern Water Tribe kept arguing long into the night.

Gran Gran rolled her eyes at the men arguing something they had no actual say in, and chivved Katara and Sokka into herding their guests away from the meeting house and into a smaller hall for a rest and some food. With a smile, Piandao handed over the items he’d brought as ‘betrothal’ gifts in case the Southern Water Tribe had said yes to the Fire Lord’s offer.

Katara didn't care much for the heavy gold-and-ruby jewellery, but she liked the books — volumes of poetry and what Piandao called 'historic tales'. There was a picture of the Fire Prince, too, a solemn boy with dark hair pulled back in a tail and wide eyes, one of them marred by an angry red scar.

“Zuko’s own father gave him that scar,” Piandao said softly. “Zuko spoke up for the lives of non-bending soldiers, and was punished and banished for the crime of caring, of compassion. He is a good boy, Lady Katara. He is kind, and generous, and clever, and he will grow into a fine man...even if I have to chase him around the training yard a few hundred times myself to whack some sense into him,” he finished with a grump, and Katara found herself quite liking this Fire Nation diplomat despite herself. Maybe the people of the Fire Nation weren’t all bad. Maybe not all of them were the monsters that she’d thought they were. Maybe they were just...people. Some good, some bad; some old, some young; some kind, some cruel. Maybe some of them knew what it was like to be the subject of cruelty, and wanted to make sure that no one else ever felt its pain.

She looked at the portrait again, and realised she was going to be spending a lot of time looking at this portrait, wondering about the boy painted in it.

* * *

There wasn’t enough time for a portrait to be painted of Katara — and even if there was, there were no paints or canvases or artists within the Southern Water Tribe to paint one. So in the morning, when the arguing men fell silent and Katara remained resolute in her decision, Hakoda agreed to sending other betrothal gifts in return. The Water Tribe would not, at least, appear to be stingy. They had no jewels to send, or books, but Piandao returned to the Fire Nation with ambergris perfume and plates of carved ivory, tiger-seal furs and a letter from Katara to her betrothed.

He also returned with hope. Lady Katara — for he insisted on calling her that, as one who acted as forthrightly and as calmly as Katara could only be a lady — would make his young student a fine wife. 

Together, they would help this world heal from the wounds his family had caused them.

But first, Zuko had to stay alive long enough for Katara to reach marriageable age. Piandao frowned, knowing that they were going to have their work cut out for them. There’d already been one attempt on the Prince’s life. Piandao wasn’t hopeful that there wouldn’t be more.


	2. Counterpart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zuko is bad with girls.

_I know you probably don’t want to leave your home,_ the letter said, the characters a little ragged and the lines not quite straight. _I wouldn’t want to leave mine. But it’s nice here, I promise. There’s penguin-sledding, and ice-sliding, and we have a lot of fun. Gran Gran knows the best stories, and Tuluk is a fantastic carver, and Oppi makes the best sea prune stew ever! Sokka and I are old enough to have our own canoe for fishing now, and there’s plenty of room for you too if you want to come with us. I hope you’ll want to come with us._

_I know neither of us want this, but it’s for the best for our people. Please, I don’t want to be married to a stranger. Please write back._

_Katara_

Zuko let the scroll roll back up, the final words ringing in his mind. _I don’t want to be married to a stranger. Please write back._

“I liked Lady Katara,” Piandao said into the silence. “She is kind, and clever, and a waterbender. She’s only 10 now, but I think she’ll grow up pretty. Good bones.”

Zuko still couldn’t say anything, his fingers tracing over the blue wax seal he’d opened to read the letter from his —

— from his _betrothed_. He’d always known he’d most likely have a political marriage, but he hadn’t expected it to be happening so soon.

Or that he’d be sent so far away, to some snowy little collection of huts at the bottom of the world. He hadn’t even bothered to head that far south in his search for the Avatar, before Uncle recalled him — there was nothing worth seeing down there.

And it was to be his _home_. The thought of leaving the Capital, the thought of leaving his mother after he’d only just come home...it was too much, and Prince Zuko bit his lip, struggling not to cry at the unfairness of it all.

“Why don’t you enjoy a cup of calming jasmine tea?” his uncle suggested, something like sadness in his eyes. “It is my own blend.”

Zuko took the proffered cup, hoping it would hide his shaking hands and tear-filled eyes. _Azula really is getting the better deal,_ he thought viciously, and not for the first time. _She’s marrying Kuei’s nephew, his heir, so she’ll be the Earth Kingdom Queen one day. For all that Piandao insists on calling Katara a lady, I know the Water Tribes don’t have titles like that. Their leadership isn’t even hereditary. I’m not going to be a Prince, or a Lord — just another villager, shivering in the snow and eating seal jerky. It’s not fair. Maybe I wasn’t lucky to have been born after all._

* * *

_~~My dear Lady Katara,~~ _

_~~Dear Lady Katara,~~ _

_~~Dear Katara,~~ _

Zuko groaned and thumped his head down on the desk. How on earth was he meant to write a letter to someone he didn’t know; someone he would be married to in a few years.

The education of a Prince of the Fire Nation was heavy on history, military strategy, and wilderness survival; Zuko was learning it left much to be desired when it came to writing to a girl you were meant to marry.

 _What even am I supposed to say to her?_ he wondered, not for the first time. Zuko could barely speak to actual living humans in front of him, let alone get words down on the page. He’d tried talking to Mei and Ty Lee, Azula’s friends from school, but it hadn’t gone well. Ty Lee had just laughed, and Mai hadn’t reacted at all, and then Azula had called him Dum Dum in front of them and…

Girls were hard. Why were girls so hard?

The soft scent of lemon perfume filled the air, and Zuko felt his mother’s hand run through his hair. “Trouble, Zuko?” 

“I don’t know what to say!” Zuko most definitely did not wail. “I don’t even know how to begin the letter!”

His mother gently tugged the paper out from under his head and very kindly did not laugh at him.

“Perhaps you need to start in the middle,” she suggested. “You can leave a space and write in the greeting later.”

“But what should I write about? I don’t know her! She doesn’t know me!”

“That’s the whole reason for the letters, my little turtleduck,” his mother said. “So you can get to know her. She’s your counterpart in this — she’s probably as confused and as worried as you are. Tell her about your day, about your lessons. You’ve been studying the Southern Water Tribe’s history — ask her about her waterbending. Ask her about the Water Tribe legends. Ask her how much of it is true — the books here are written by Fire Nation scholars, and they may not be the truth.”

“But...they’re books! They have to be the truth! Why would books lie?”

“Books are written by people. And people lie. For example, what does your history book say about the beginning of the Fire Nation?”

“It began with Sozin’s ascension.”

“Which was when?”

“In the year 560!”

“And when was this Palace built?”

“The oldest parts were begun in the year 486,” Zuko recited dutifully, wondering why his mother was asking him this. Every child in the Fire Nation knew this stuff!

“How can the Fire Nation Palace have been built before the Fire Nation began?” Mother asked calmly, and Zuko felt as if he’d run head first into a wall inside his brain.

“Oh.”

“Books lie, Zuko. The Fire Nation existed before Sozin, and the Air Nation had no military force.”

“...Sozin didn’t start the war to spread Fire Nation prosperity to others, did he?”

“He did not, my turtleduck. He began the war because he wanted to control the world. Your uncle ended the war because he wanted the world to control itself.”

“...this doesn’t help me know what to write to Katara, because now I have even more questions than when I started!”

* * *

_In the afternoons, after my lessons, I like to spend time in the gardens around the palace. Some wild turtleducks have taken to living in the pond near my rooms, and I feed them whenever I can steal bread from the kitchens. I could probably ask for bread and they’d give me more than the turtleducks could ever eat, but I like the challenge. I feel like a ninja from the old stories!_

_I hope the albatross-pigeon finds its way back to you. I have no idea how you train them to fly so far. Thank you for letting me name her — I think Strawberry Mochi would be a good name, do you agree? They are some of my favourite sweets. I have included some for you to try._

_May Agni’s light shine upon you._

_Zuko_

There was an ink blotch beside Zuko’s name, like he’d rested the brush there for a moment before making up his mind, and Katara was relieved at this small imperfection in the letter. His handwriting was so neat! The paper so fine! And his stories — school and firebending lessons and sword fighting lessons and gardens and turtleducks and going to the theatre with this mother…

Katara looked around the house she shared with her family. It was small, and dark, and the snowy walls and ceiling were smudged with the greasy smoke that came from burning animal dung.

For the first time in her life, Katara felt shame about where she came from. She didn’t like the feeling.

 _Maybe our village isn’t as fancy as a palace, but it’s just as good!_ she thought, and began her own letter, talking about her lessons, and the plans her village was making to redevelop some of the old summer hunting sites. 

The Southern Water Tribe had never been as nomadic as the Air Nomads, but they weren’t city people either. In the past, they’d moved with the seasons between summer camps and winter lodges. Their population was still too small for their culture to fully flourish again, but the peace allowed them the possibility to imagine the days when it would.

 _By the time Zuko is here,_ Katara thought hopefully, her brush carefully moving over the page, thanking Zuko for the sweets, agreeing that Strawberry Mochi was a fine name, and saying that she had no idea how the albatross-pigeons were trained but that she was sure Toklo would be happy to teach Zuko when he got here if he asked.

* * *

_I am sorry for how late this letter is,_ Katara read. _Soon after your letter arrived, there was another attack on the palace. It seems that many are not in favour of Uncle’s decision to end the war — a lot of our nobles got very rich off the war, apparently. They are upset that Uncle is decreasing military spending, and had ordered many of the tanks and armaments to be scrapped. I’m sure the letter from him to your father has more information, but he’s planning on offering the scrap metal to the Water Tribes, to help your industry develop. I hope it will be of use to you._

_I don’t know why they’re fussing now — the war has been over for more than three years! I don’t know. Maybe they just thought it was a passing fancy of Uncle’s, but now that he’s scrapping the tanks...maybe now they realise he’s serious. The war is over._

_I’m glad you stood up to Pakku and insisted you learn offensive and defensive waterbending, as well as healing. When I told Azula that girls in the Northern Water Tribe are forbidden from fighting and must only learn to heal, she was really angry. Princess Yue is due to visit the Capital in the next few weeks for another round of peace talks, and I shudder to think what Azula is going to say to her about it._

_I won’t be there, however — since the last kidnapping attempt, Uncle has decided it is safer for me and for Lu Ten if I am less visible in the Capital. As a result, I am being assigned to the Navy_

Katara let the letter drop from her fingers, her heart suddenly turning to ice in her chest. She rushed into the other room, already knowing what she would find, and hating herself for it. She checked the calendar and began to cry.

A week ago had been the anniversary of her mother’s death.

She’d forgotten it.

They’d all forgotten it.

She thought back to a week ago, trying to remember what had been more important than remembering her mother’s sacrifice. There’d been lessons in the morning, and then a hunt in the afternoon, and then they’d had a feast to welcome Piandao back to their village. The diplomat had become a familiar figure in the years since the betrothal was arranged, bringing goods and news from the Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom on his visits and taking Southern Water Tribe goods back to sell for them, often accompanied by Bato and some of the other young warriors. The Southern Water Tribe was no longer isolated, and with Pakku and a few other Northern waterbenders deciding to relocate to the South, Katara was no longer the only waterbender.

Piandao was here to stay for several months, as he had decided that his latest apprentice, Josun, was too hot-headed and that some time among the Southern Water tribe would do the young man some good. Katara had never seen Sokka so serious as when he’d asked Piandao if he could also be his apprentice, and now Katara’s ears were full of talk of steel and techniques as Piandao, Sokka, and Josun talked swords all day and all night, with the other men of the tribe chiming in to give their opinions. Katara had even gone with them to help dismantle the Fire Navy ship they’d captured in the ice all those years ago, her skills as both a waterbender and a healer considered useful enough to include her in the journey despite only being thirteen.

She’d been so busy she’d forgotten her mother, forgotten the woman who had stood up and lied to a Fire Navy Captain just to keep Katara safe…

And now Katara was betrothed to a Fire Nation sailor. 

And now Sokka was learning to fight from a Fire Nation swordmaster.

Hakoda had very cautiously started to court a woman from the Earth Kingdom who had decided to move to the South Pole when her son had inexplicably been born a waterbender, causing her husband to first accuse her of infidelity and then to abandon her and their child.

They’d turned their backs on their mother’s sacrifice. 

They were horrible people. The worst.

Katara hurried to sculpt fresh ice flowers for her mother’s altar. She regularly dusted it, and the one for her grandparents whose waves had returned to the ocean, so she was spared that guilt, but it had been a long time since Katara had used her waterbending skills to make flowers for the dead.

She should be spending her time doing that, not reading letters from Fire Navy sailors.

* * *

_Katara, is something the matter? You never responded to my last letter. Did the instructions not make sense? Strawberry Mochi won’t be able to find me since my ship is moving so much._

* * *

_Katara, please tell me what’s wrong. Was it something I said? I know the instructions on how to get letters to me made sense, since Sokka has written to me._

_ Sokka. _

_Not you, your brother._

_Katara, please. Tell me what’s wrong. I can fix it. I swear I will fix whatever it is._

* * *

_It’s our mother,_ Sokka’s letter said the next time the Wani pulled into a scheduled stop and collected their mail. _The anniversary of her death passed recently, and Katara got all sensitive about it, accusing us of forgetting her._

_Like I could ever forget my mother! I just don’t get all mushy about it. I’m not a girl._

_But Katara is, and she got all weird and angry about it, and I’m not sure you can help. Maybe send her more pretty things? Girls like pretty things._

Zuko felt awful. He and Katara had been writing to each other regularly for three years now, and she’d mentioned her mother a few times. Zuko knew how Kya had died, but it was...academic, somehow. He forgot that her death meant that Katara was growing up without a mother. Zuko was growing up without a father, but he suspected that was different. Ozai had never been...kind. Kya had probably been kind.

Zuko squared his fifteen-year old shoulders and headed to the fancier parts of the town they were berthed at. If pretty things were the way to earn Katara’s forgiveness, then pretty things were what he’d get her. He’d get her all of the prettiest things.

* * *

At the next scheduled port there was a parcel for Zuko, the address written in Katara’s careful hand rather than Sokka’s messy scrawl. Zuko couldn’t stop grinning as he carried it back to the Wani.

His betrothed had been angry, but he’d fixed it and she’d forgiven him, and everything was right in the world again. He’d been enjoying his time on the Wani — most of what they’d been doing was helping coastal towns rebuild, helping refugees get home and generally just trying to be helpful in erasing the automatic “Fire Nation = bad” reflex people in the Earth Kingdom had towards them — but a dark cloud of Katara’s disappointment had hovered over him since she’d stopped answering his letters.

But she’d written back, and Zuko felt so happy that not even Agni himself could dim Zuko’s fire.

Lieutenant Jee’s armour creaked in amusement as Zuko hurried through the after dinner clean-up as fast as possible — he was a crewmember now, a proper one, not a banished prince they had to take orders from — and Zuko stoically ignored the grins that some of the older crewmembers sent his way when he (nicely!) turned down an offer to join a Pai Sho game in favour of retreating to his bunk. Katara had forgiven him! Katara had sent him a package of forgiveness!

He wished he’d taken up the offer of a cabin rather than a bunk in a room with other crewmen when he opened the package to find his gifts to her returned.

Every single one. Even the pretty beads he’d found for her hair — purple and silver, her favourite colours, and engraved with tiny otter-penguins, her favourite animals — had been returned.

There was also a note, and when Zuko read it, he wished she hadn’t written anything at all. _I will not be bought!_ it said, her writing clearly furious. _I will not break the betrothal and put my people’s lives at risk, but if you think I will ever forgive a member of the Navy who murdered my mother you are sorely mistaken!_

He was still staring at the note when Lieutenant Jee stopped in front of him. Wordlessly, Zuko handed him the note, and Lieutenant Jee’s armour creaked in sympathy.

* * *

There was a man, trussed up and gagged like a mouse-turkey, and the Fire Nation soldiers standing over him were not smiling.

“Lady Katara?” one of them asked, and slowly she walked forward. They bowed low to her, their hands cupped in front of them in the Fire Nation manner. She didn’t bow in return. She was still angry.

“Prince Zuko sends you this, with his warmest regards,” the soldier continued. “He also asked us to deliver you this letter.”

There was something about the man trussed up on the snow that seemed familiar to Katara, and absently she took the letter, not taking her eyes off the man.

Though she did look up when the soldiers bowed again, and turned and began to march back to their ship.

“Wait!” Katara called. “I don’t understand! Who is he? Why are you leaving him here?”

The soldiers didn’t stop to give her answers, and after exchanging a puzzled glance with her father, Katara opened the letter.

_Katara_

_I am sorry. I am sorry for everything done to your family by mine. I am sorry for everything that has been done to your people by mine. I am sorry that my people ever caused you an ounce of pain._

_The man at your feet is yours. He is Yon Rha, the former commander of a now disbanded Fire Nation Navy special forces unit called the Southern Raiders, who carried out all the raids on the Southern Water Tribe. I disbanded this unit myself. It is Yon Rha himself who killed your mother._

_I deliver him to you. His life is yours to do what you will._

_I would also offer you the option to end our betrothal. I have made myself clear to Uncle — there are to be no repercussions for your decision for you or your people — but I refuse to be a burden on you._

_Words cannot express how sorry I am, Katara. If we meet one day, I hope to be able to apologise to you in person._

_May Agni’s light forever shine upon you, and may Tui and La hold you close._

_Yours,_

_Zuko._

* * *

_WHAT IN THE NAME OF TUI AND LA DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?_ Zuko read, Katara’s rage visible in the sharp lines of her writing. _”His life is yours to do what you will”? Zuko, how on earth did you think this was okay? What did you think we’d do, murder him?_

_Is that what you think of us? Of me? That I’d be okay with this?_

_Zuko, murder is wrong. Killing that man won’t bring my mother back. It won’t undo the pain that’s been caused. All it will do is spread the pain to a new family, and keep the pain living in this world._

_Death is a last resort, Zuko. Executing someone is not something our tribe does lightly — because in executing someone, we lose their contributions to the tribe. And everyone contributes, Zuko. We can’t survive unless we all help each other. Yon Rha wouldn’t have been much help to our community — he doesn’t know how to hunt, how to mend nets or cure hides, how to pack snow to make shelters, or how to forage for plants on the tundra. He’s an old man, Zuko, and old men aren’t good at learning new skills, especially not when they’re thrown into a culture and a way of life they don’t know or understand! Our elders live in comfort because they have worked for the tribe their entire life, and because we value their wisdom. Yon Rha is not one of us, and we have no use for his wisdom._

_Did you think we’d keep him in prison? Zuko, we don’t have a prison. A prisoner is someone we have to feed, without them contributing to being fed._

_We put him back on your ship. Do with him what you will — the Southern Water Tribe officially washes their hands of him._

_And another thing, trying to weasel out of our betrothal like that? Unacceptable, Zuko. I can’t believe you’d even try to do that! “I have made myself clear to Uncle — there are to be no repercussions for your decision for you or your people.” Forgive me if I don’t trust the word of a firebender who thinks murder is an acceptable action! This betrothal was made to keep my people safe, and you’re not backing out of it that easily._

_My father will be travelling to your Capital for your cousin’s wedding. He plans to meet with you and your Uncle to discuss our betrothal. Although he does not have the right under our traditions to offer my hand in marriage, he does have the right to represent me in negotiations, which he does with my blessing. I am sorry that I cannot come myself, but I am needed here in ways in which my father is not._

_You’re not getting out of this that easily. Piandao gave us his word, and we’ve learned to trust him. He has shown us that not all of the Fire Nation are monsters._

_By Tui and La I hope you show my father the same._

_Katara._

Zuko clutched the letter to his chest. He was relieved that she’d forgiven him. Well, probably forgiven him. She’d written back, and said that she wanted their betrothal to go ahead. That was basically forgiveness, right?

Relief warred with worry, however. Her father was coming here. Her father was coming to meet him.

Her father, a legendary warrior, was coming to meet the boy who was betrothed to his only daughter, the only native-born Southern waterbender left alive due to the action’s of Zuko’s own family.

Zuko felt his relief give way to terror.


	3. Fuse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Zuko’s explanation of what will happen on his wedding night is taken from Catherine’s monologue in episode 1 of The Great. Because I thought it was hilarious and wanted to use it in a fic.

Zuko stood very, very still as the Southern Water Tribe ship docked in the harbour. He was fairly sure that the sweat running down his back had nothing to do with the baking sun reflecting off the courtyard, but more for who was on that ship.

Chief Hakoda was on that ship. His future father-in-law.

Probably.

If the negotiations went well.

_I didn’t think I’d ever be hoping that I’d be sent to the South Pole,_ Zuko reflected as he watched the sailors secure the ship to the wharf, the wooden Southern Water Tribe ship looking small surrounded by the hulking iron ships of the Fire Nation Navy. _But now it’s the only thing I think I want._

Zuko was glad he’d ordered the biggest ships out of the harbour, leaving only the smaller cruisers in port, the Wani amongst them. He missed his time on the Wani, but knowing how Katara felt about the Fire Nation Navy, he’d resigned his commission. She was more important to him than being a sailor.

She’d quite snuck up on him, he realised. Their first few awkward letters had developed into a genuine friendship. Katara was funny, and smart, and passionate, and cared so much for her people that Zuko was in awe of her.

He suspected that he probably actually loved her by this point.

Which, as he was a sixteen-year old boy, was awkward and icky. He wasn’t sure he was ready for love yet.

But Katara mattered. What Katara thought about him mattered.

And therefore, what Hakoda thought about him mattered.

The gangway was lowered, and the Water Tribe warriors descended, their wolf-hoods raised. They were huge to Zuko’s eyes — big, and solid, and most likely able to crush him with their bare hands.

He had a sudden appreciation for why the Southern Water Tribe had sent Yon Rha back to them. What on earth could a frail old Fire Nation sailor offer these giants?

The biggest man halted in front of him, and the herald beside Zuko began to recite the traditional phrases of welcome and boastfulness of the family of Souza’s line.

Zuko cut him off after the first words of welcome. Boasts of Fire Nation fighting prowess would be an insult. He made a mental note that this herald should not be used to welcome international guests in future, and stepped closer to the man he presumed was Hakoda.

“Chief Hakoda,” he said, thrilled that his voice sounded steady and didn’t squeak and change as he spoke. “I am Prince Zuko. Welcome to the Fire Nation. May Agni’s light shine upon us, and may Tui and La hold us in their hearts.” He bowed carefully — the bow of a prince to an emperor — then stuck out his hand.

Shaking hands was relatively new in the Fire Nation, given the importance of hands in bending. But it was common in other parts of the world, he’d read, and it showed that no weapons were hidden up his sleeves. 

The Chief looked at his hand for a long while, then accepted it, shaking it briskly. “Prince Zuko. Thank you for your welcome.”

The Chief said nothing more as the handshake finished, and Zuko fought the urge to squirm under the man’s gaze. “We have arranged for rooms in the Palace for you and your men — if you will come with me, your belongings will be carried up shortly.” Zuko knew full well that the Chief would leave several men guarding his ship — it’s what Zuko would have done. He knew that the sailors left onboard would soon find the markets, teahouses and brothels of the city, taking the measure of the city and its people, and learning what they could.

Zuko had been a sailor for several years. Although he’d never been to the brothels — it felt disloyal to Katara, somehow — most of his crewmates had whenever they’d stopped in a port. The boasting and stories on board had been harder to escape, though Agni save the sailors that boasted about their ‘conquests’ in a way that Engineer Hanako felt was ‘disrespectful’. Engineer Hanako was terrifying. Zuko missed her.

The party moved up the hill, Zuko setting a relatively easy pace — it was a hot day, even for him, and he didn’t like to think how the Water Tribesmen must be suffering in their heavy furs. But he’d thought that they wouldn’t have appreciated the palanquins that the Royal Family usually travelled in — and Zuko wanted the Water Tribesmen to see that the people of the Fire Nation Capital were just that — people.

“We have arranged for a selection of lighter clothes, sir,” Zuko said as they crossed through a large square where a statue of Azulon was being removed. “Our archives contained some scrolls showing the clothing of the Southern Water Tribe, and our seamstresses were able to recreate them in fabrics that are not so heavy. They are yours to use as you will, and several seamstresses are available to make any changes to the fit. I mean, if you want, you can keep wearing your furs, but it’s hot, and I thought you might like it if you had lighter things to wear, but if that’s wrong then you can stay in your furs I really don’t mind —”

A soft snort behind him made Zuko very aware that he was babbling, and he stopped with a blush.

“We have made copies of the scrolls, and I would like to give you the originals to return to your Tribe. It’s your knowledge. You should have it. There’s also some scrolls about Southern Water Tribe bending — Katara’s letters mentioned that it’s supposed to be different from the Northern Style, but she wasn’t sure how, and I thought maybe these scrolls would help.”

“Are you trying to buy my daughter with these scrolls?”

Zuko’s babbling kicked into high gear. “No sir! No. I would never...Katara is her own woman. She had made that perfectly clear. No, these scrolls...they belong to your Tribe. We took them — we took so much from you. We can’t undo the past, we can’t unmake the decisions that were made, but we can give these scrolls back. So we will. Our archivists insisted on making copies — our archivists insisted on keeping the originals and sending you the copies but I overruled them. We keep the copies, and the originals return with you.”

Zuko was aware he was babbling again, and he was very, very pleased when they arrived at the palace and the servants came to lead them to the rooms that had been set aside for the Water Tribe visitors. Zuko had made sure they were rooms overlooking the ocean, and had possibly redesigned the gardens around them to make sure there were lots of ponds. Zuko didn’t think they had any waterbenders with them — Katara was the last Southern Waterbender, and he didn’t know if any of the Northern ones had moved to the Pole since contact had been re-established between the Water Tribes, but just in case, he wanted them to have easy access to water.

Just in case. The attacks by rebels on the palace had slowed in recent years — while Lu Ten wasn’t a bender, his betrothed was. Lady Mizumi was a sweet girl, a firebender from a long line of firebenders that had frequently intermarried with airbenders in the past — one of her ancestors had been the younger sister of Avatar Yangchen. Uncle was serious about using his heirs to ensure peace, marrying his niece and nephew off to the other nations and finding someone with strong ties to the Air Nomads as a wife for his son.

Fortunately, Lady Mizumi and Lu Ten got on quite well, and it looked like their marriage would be a successful one. Lady Mizumi was easy to talk to, and gave good advice (much better than the advice Sokka had given in his occasional letters), and was able to calm Azula’s rages which was something that Zuko considered honestly miraculous. Nothing he did ever calmed Azula’s rages.

Lady Mizumi was also kind to children and small animals, and the turtleducks approved of her, so Zuko approved of her too. Though there was something about how nice she was that Zuko wasn’t sure about. He was sure she was genuine — she was just a lovely girl — but Zuko was glad it was Lu Ten marrying her, not Zuko himself. He was quite sure that Lady Mizumi would never yell at Zuko in a letter, or have a long-running debate with him about whether snow had a soul, or challenge his ideas on justice and mercy.

Katara did all that. Katara was like no one Zuko had ever met. 

He’d never met Katara, but he was fairly sure he was in love already.

Now only if he’d stop being a moron in front of Hakoda, then by Agni, life would be grand.

* * *

Zuko sat in his cabin, cross-legged on his bed, and opened the box again. When he’d boarded the Wani for his trip to the South he’d thought he’d bunk with the crew as he’d done last time, but they’d been firm. He probably should be on a more impressive ship for his betrothal journey, but it was the _Wani_. It was home nearly as much as the Palace was.

Last time he’d been on board he’d been a working crewmember. This time, he was a noble. The ranking noble on board. He was put in the stateroom that had been his when he’d been banished all those years ago, when he was twelve years old, lost, confused and in pain. 

The scar was still there, but it hadn’t bothered him for years. He was used to the pain now — barely noticed it. This time, he wasn’t scared, or lost, or confused — though he was...apprehensive. When he got off this boat he’d be married, and living in a strange village, with strangers.

Except it wasn’t a strange village, and they weren’t strangers. Not really. He and Katara had been exchanging letters for six years now, and Zuko knew a lot about their village and the people who lived there. He’d become invested in the long, slow, torturous romance of Bato and Anjij, devouring every twist and turn of their relationship as Katara had related it, and had even sent them a nice betrothal gift when Bato had finally pulled his head out of his ass and realised Anjij was far too good for him. Zuko had even exchanged occasional letters with Sokka, and of course he’d met a host of the warriors when they’d come to the Fire Nation for Lu Ten’s marriage two years ago, and he’d sent a few letters back and forth with Panuk and Kustaa since.

He ran his hands over the letters that had opened up another world for him, and once again felt excitement and apprehension war with themselves in his blood. He knew these people. And soon he’d be one of them.

He looked at the portrait that held pride of place in his room, and not for the first time wondered how much Katara had changed since it had been painted. A wandering Fire Nation artist had spent a few months with the various villages of the Southern Water Tribe, capturing their lives in charcoal and inks and paint, and Katara had asked her to paint a formal portrait of her to send to Zuko.

Hakoda had handed it over when the new betrothal agreement had been signed, and Zuko had looked at it every day since.

In one of her earlier letters, before their big fight, Katara had embroidered a panel of soft leather with a curling wave in white, and a curving flame rising out of the wave, to signify their betrothal. Charmed, Zuko had had the emblem copied into a delicate silver ornament for Katara's hair.

In the portrait, the ornament was tucked into the front of a round knot of hair on top of her head, and she was smiling.

He looked at the portrait, wondering how much the young woman of sixteen resembled the girl of fourteen. The portrait was coloured, so he knew she had blue eyes and dark skin, but the letters had told him more about her than any portrait. All the portrait had done was give him a face to put to the words, and the beauty of her face had left him breathless.

When he’d sailed with them last time, some of the crewmembers had teased him for never going to the brothels with them, saying that he wouldn’t know what to do when he finally met Katara. Looking at her portrait, Zuko didn’t think he’d have any problems. He already loved her. He was sure that would be enough.

I'm nervous, Katara had written, as honest in her last letter as she had been in her first. _But I'm looking forward to seeing you at last. I'm so glad that you won't be a stranger, Zuko. I know you so well that you couldn't be, even if I have no idea what you look like — though father says you look like your portrait but older. I know he liked you, when he met you at Lu Ten and Mizumi’s wedding. And Kustaa and Panuk had only nice things to say about you — even Aake, who is no fan of the Fire Nation, said that “you weren’t the worst”, which for him is high praise!_

_I know the South Pole will be strange for you, but I remember what I promised years ago, and I won't let anyone be unkind to you. And you don't need to worry about building a house! Sokka convinced father and the warriors that it would shame us if you showed up and we didn't have anywhere to put you, so they built a house for us instead of making you do it. I know it won't be what you're used to, but I hope you like it. I'll be watching the horizon for your boat every day._

It wouldn't be what he was used to, though he'd done his best. After Lu Ten’s wedding, when the betrothal was confirmed, he’d gone to Uncle asked to have his personal servants withdrawn. He’d been uncomfortable with them since coming back from serving on the Wani anyway — going from a situation where he was considered one of the crew, and treated no different from any other young crewman, to being back in a place where people tried to dress him and opened doors for him had been strange. 

He was relieved when Uncle had listened to his argument that he had to learn to take care of himself, he'd said, or the Water Tribe warriors would laugh at him and he would bring shame on the Fire Nation, so he should learn how not to be a prince. How to just be a man, who would help his tribe. Who wouldn’t be a burden.

_Everyone contributes, Zuko. We can’t survive unless we all help each other._

So he’d learned. He'd learned to hunt — not the formal, tidy 'hunting' nobles practiced, but how to hunt on foot and alone, to skin a catch and know what organs were good to eat and what should be thrown away. He'd mastered the use of swords, spear, and the odd club the Water Tribe warriors used. He'd learned to sail a boat, and how to fish. Whenever visitors from either of the Water Tribes had visited Zuko had hosted them, and learned from them, and had even gone on hunting trips to the islands that were the border between the Fire Nation and the Northern Water Tribe, where there was just enough snow that Zuko could practise constructing a snow shelter, and learn how to see the white coat of a seal-cat against the white ground.

But he was still nervous. He still missed with his boomerang more than he didn’t, and his attempts at carving were rubbish. How could he provide for a wife when he'd never even really had to take care of himself?

Carefully, he packed the letters away in their compartment in the box containing his particular treasures. The portrait of Katara in a simple frame was laid in another compartment, with the images of his mother, sister, Uncle, and cousins. The ivory went in the bottom, with the Earth Kingdom knife his uncle had given him, the incense he would not be able to get at the South Pole, the embroidery threads he'd brought to give to Katara as a private gift and the box of beads in varying sizes that his mother had given him before he left. "Katara's hair is so pretty," she had said, kissing her son sadly. "I am sure my granddaughters will be just as beautiful with beads in their hair. You must send me pictures."

He hadn't brought much with him. The Water Tribe, especially the warriors, didn't set much store by possessions. He had warm clothes, and his weapons. Gifts for his new wife and her family — Katara had suggested practical things, like good steel needles for her grandmother and steel weapons for her father and brother, and blue-dyed wool cloth for all of them. He had a set of formal robes suitable for state occasions, to be put aside in case of need. And he had his box of all the things he valued most.

He closed the box, and went to be dressed in the new clothes prepared for this day — leather dyed red and black over layers of wool, thick white fur lining the whole. The village was already in sight.

A small party had come with him — Piandao, of course, as both his mentor and the diplomat who had arranged the betrothal. Uncle had not come himself, of course, and mother had gone with Azula to represent their family at Azula’s wedding to Long Feng, Kuei’s nephew and heir. Lady Mizumi was due to give birth to her and Lu Ten’s second and third children any day now, and so Zuko was on his own — but also not alone.

His family were with him, in his heart, and Agni continued to smile upon him. He wasn’t facing a village of strangers, and he’d finally get to be with Katara at last.

As the Wani glided into the small harbour and anchored, his heart leapt with joy. This felt right.

This felt like it could become home.

When he disembarked he bowed to Chief Hakoda, the bow of a commoner to an emperor, and the Chief gruffly nodded his head then pulled Zuko into a hug.

“Come on, boy,” the Chief said gruffly. “Let’s get this over with, before the women drive me even madder.”

His friends Panuk and Kustaa fell into step with him, as did a boy he suspected was Sokka, based on his resemblance to the Chief. 

“If you want to run, we’ll help,” Panuk whispered.

Kustaa nodded. “Katara is scary. You’re a brave man, Zuko. I mean, she’s pretty, but the temper on her…” he let out a low whistle, and Sokka nodded in agreement.

Zuko gulped. “You only think that because you are mannerless morons,” he said, using a term Katara had used to describe these boys in one of her most recent letters. Apparently they’d started to go girl-crazy, and it had made them even more stupid than usual.

“We may be mannerless morons, but at least we know how to treat a girl,” Kustaa said. “Do you even know what to do tonight?”

Zuko had expected something like this, especially when Sokka muttered how he didn’t want to know and moved to walk beside Piandao and out of earshot. “I’m not naive. My mother has explained everything. The woman caresses you softly as we press our lips together, our breaths and skin awakening and shivering with palpitating joy. Between her legs, she will quiver and moisten with longing, as between my legs my manliness will harden, ready to claim my wife. I will enter her, and we will become one. Our bodies will fuse, our souls will mesh...as the sensation takes hold of us, we will fall into a black sky filled with the shiniest of stars, floating for a time in ecstacy before waves of pleasure push and pull us back into our bodies. Our bodies will usher forth yelps, and gentle cries, and maybe even song, before she and I explode within, collapsing together, spent and unified. Then, we lay together, laughing softly, weeping possibly with the overwhelming feelings of love surging through our bodies, and finally I’ll wrap my arms around Katara, whisper poetry softly into her ear, and we’ll fall into a delicious sleep together before waking up to do it all over again.”

It was all lies, of course. His mother had never said anything to him on this topic, his Uncle instead trying to tell Zuko the facts of life through a series of metaphors related to tea which had made no sense.

Serving on the Wani had taught Zuko the basics, and Healer Satoru had sat all of the younger crew members down and given them a very detailed discussion of the medical effects of sex.

There had been pictures. They had not been erotic.

But Zuko had expected a question like this from his friends in the Water Tribe, and Engineer Hanako had helped him come up with that nonsense. He suspected she’d moved to walking in earshot just to see if he could get it out without blushing.

Kustaa and Panuk were still gaping at him when they reached the center of the village and all of the Water Tribe men arranged themselves in front of a large house, pushing Zuko towards the center of the group. A heavy leather curtain was pushed aside, and a parade of women began to emerge. A little girl of about five came first, followed by several older girls in a clear sequence of age. Grown women came next, some carrying children, and finally a heavily pregnant woman and a very old one stepped out, escorting a girl.

Zuko knew he was staring. He couldn't help it.

Katara had never really described herself, any more than he had. She'd been a pretty girl, he knew that from her portrait, but...

But now she was beautiful. The words on the page that he'd been fond of were a lovely young woman, graceful as she walked towards him with downcast eyes, and the _reality_ of her struck him breathless.

She didn't look at him until they stood facing each other. Then she lifted huge blue eyes to his, looking as shy and hopeful as he felt. When their eyes met, Zuko felt suddenly, absurdly relieved. It had been hard to believe that this exquisite girl in lavishly embroidered blue and white was the same Katara who'd written to him about washing her brother's socks and learning to fight, the same Katara who’d yelled at him about Yon Rha and shared her joy in the new litters of polar dogs and his joy in new broods of turtleducks, but her eyes were just the same as they had been in the portrait... and after a moment, so was her smile.

"Hello," Katara whispered, and a faint flush warmed her cheeks.

"Hello," he whispered back, and smiled at her.

The ceremony was far briefer than any marriage in the Fire Nation — but since it was conducted under the open sky, standing in the snow, Zuko didn't think that was necessarily intended to be insulting. In what felt like seconds, Katara's small mittened hands were in his, and Zuko was promising to keep a strong roof over her head and food on her table. Katara smiled up at him, and when she promised to bear his children and keep his hearth. Zuko's heart seemed to turn over happily in his chest. His anxiety melted away in the face of his joy, and Zuko felt the light of Agni bless him.

The feast, thankfully, did not take place outside. He sat beside Katara as they were formally congratulated — and while some of the 'congratulations' sounded more like sympathy for Katara, she just rolled her eyes and held his hand under the low table. The touch of little soft, warm fingers had him blushing again. Now that the wedding was over, the inevitable aftermath of the wedding was looming large in his mind. They'd met barely two hours ago, and despite his bravado earlier he was very aware that soon they would have to...

He choked on a spoonful, and gave Sokka an indignant look. Sokka was snickering unrepentantly. Katara leaned around Zuko to glare at her brother. "Why would you give him sea-prunes without telling him?"

"Oh, it won't hurt him." Sokka grinned. "Okay, okay, if he doesn't want them —"

"I didn't say I didn't want them!" Zuko protested, very aware of hostile eyes on him. Rejecting some Water Tribe delicacy would be a very bad idea, and Kustaa had warned him about the sea prunes ages ago. "I was just surprised." He took another spoonful and ate it slowly. Very sour, with a tangy edge... thank Agni he liked sour foods. He finished the bowl, mouth only a little puckered, and only then reached for the rice wine they had brought. "They're good."

"Awww..." Sokka looked disappointed that his prank had backfired, but Zuko was pretty sure that several of the old people watching him were signalling grudging approval. "I hoped you'd hate them so I could eat yours."

"I like sour food." He smiled a little shyly at Katara. "And I know you do. Remember the candy I sent you that time?"

"The plum candy!" Katara nodded. "I had to hide it from Sokka — he kept trying to steal it!"

"It was good." Sokka didn't look at all apologetic. Zuko was glad he’d remembered to bring some with him. It might be useful to get Sokka on his side.

Sokka and Katara between them made the feast actually somewhat pleasant, despite the nervousness coiling in Zuko's stomach, and Zuko was pleased to see his friends from the Wani getting along with the friends he’d made from the Water Tribe on their visits to the Fire Nation Capital. 

But all too soon the feast was over, and Zuko and Katara were escorted to the small house prepared for them and ceremonially but firmly pushed through the door. To Zuko's surprise, there seemed to be a lot of noise outside afterwards. "Uh..." He cleared his throat, knowing he was blushing and trying to pretend he wasn't. "What are they —"

"They're walling us in," Katara said, sounding as embarrassed as he felt. "It's... traditional. To, uh, make sure we can't get out. Until morning."

"Oh." Zuko cleared his throat. There were no windows — of course not, they'd only let in the cold — but lamps had been lit in the small house that appeared to be about half tent. "I... I see."

His possessions had been brought to the house, he saw. His weapons were arranged on a rack that wasn't quite the right shape for them. His box was sitting on a table, and the large cedar chest that held his clothes was at the end of the bed.

The bed.

He swallowed hard.

A small warm hand crept into his. "Zuko?" Katara asked in a small voice. "Have you ever... uh..."

He squeezed her hand gently, realizing guiltily that she must be even more nervous than he was. "No," he admitted. "It... it didn't seem right, when I was betrothed to you."

"Oh." He wasn't sure, but he thought she sounded pleased. "I haven't... I mean, I know what's supposed to happen. Gran Gran told me. But she didn't, uhm... she was really kind of warning me, not giving me advice, exactly."

Zuko frowned. "Warning you?" What did the woman think he was going to do to Katara? Jump on her and rape her?

Well. He remembered some of what he'd learned about the war as he got older, and what had happened to the Southern Water Tribe specifically. That was probably exactly what the woman thought — and for all he knew, from personal experience. He knew one of the reasons why he was here was that several of the women his people had kidnapped from the South Pole had had children upon their return. Steam babies, they were called back in the Fire Nation. It wasn’t considered a kind term.

"Mostly." Katara was nibbling on her lower lip, clearly nervous. "I mean, I know she was wrong, you wouldn't..."

"No. I wouldn't." He reached out, curving his fingers to cup her cheek, and the way she lifted her face to his made his heart pound. "I don't... I'm not exactly an expert. But I know what to do, sort of, and I'm not going to hurt you," he said quietly. "We'll... we'll figure it out together. Okay?"

She smiled up at him. "Okay."

Her smile was irresistible, and Zuko did what a carefully-ignored part of him had wanted to do since he saw her — he leaned down and kissed her. It was slow and careful at first, but then she sighed and cuddled into his arms and he held her close and kissed her more and it was _perfect_.

He wasn't sure how long they stood there, Katara nestled in his arms and her lips sweet and warm under his. But they were both breathing fast when she pulled back enough to look up at him, hands still grasping the front of his long vest. "Oh," she murmured, and there was nothing nervous about her smile now. "I'm so glad it's you."

Nobody had ever looked at him like that. Had ever wanted him above anyone else. Zuko swallowed hard, cupping her face gently between his hands. "I'm glad it's you too," he murmured, and bent to kiss her again.

She tilted her head, and deepened the kiss, and Zuko realised with a rush of blood away from his head why life existed. Why so many songs and stories were about love and sex.

The touch of Katara’s mouth on his was the best thing he’d ever felt, and he felt his fire coil in his belly.

He was blasting jelly, and she was his fuse.


	4. Celestial

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zuko is called back to the Fire Nation. Iroh is dying.

The Fire Nation Capital was one of the grandest things Katara had ever seen, and she was sorry she was seeing it under such circumstances.

Beside her she could feel Zuko shifting imperceptibly, pulling the mantle of Prince around his shoulders like an old cloak that didn’t fit right anymore.

It had been a long time since Zuko had needed to use these courtesies. Katara wasn’t sure she liked how they sat on his tongue.

Zuko had always been — and would always be — charming and polite when he needed to be. He tended to babble awkwardly when discombobulated, a situation Katara took sly joy in causing whenever possible, especially in the privacy of their own home, and around his friends he’d somehow become the source of wisdom and a brake on their wilder ideas, but in formal matters Zuko had the best manners of anyone Katara knew, save Piandao.

Katara had thought his occasional bouts of formality that she’d seen at the South Pole were the worst of it, but since the ship had docked in their little harbour Katara had seen that her Zuko at his most formal was relaxed and unpretentious compared to Prince Zuko.

In the five years they’d been married she’d never seen her husband so stiff and unbending. He’d drilled her into the courtesies she’d need to know as a member of the ruling family, despite the fact that she was from the Water Tribe and therefore overwhelmingly seen by most in the Capital as a complete savage (according to the gossip she’d persuaded some of their visitors over the years to impart to her).

The fact that Zuko was now managing most of the trade for the collected Southern Water Tribes (and wasn’t the fact that there was enough of them again to be a plural of tribes fantastic) hadn’t helped. It turned out that part of a 'proper' royal education included memorising lists of imports and exports for places all over the world, knowledge that Zuko put to use to get much better prices for some of their trade-goods — seriously annoying several merchants who had apparently been making a fortune by misleading the Water Tribes as to the price of ivory in Ba Sing Se, or ambergris in the Fire Nation. It didn't hurt that Fire Nation merchants seemed to think it was positively blasphemous to lie to a member of the royal family, let alone try to cheat him.

'I think' had become 'I know' quickly. Katara loved her husband, and she never doubted that he loved her. Joy slowly became peaceful certainty, though Katara never quite lost the little thrill of wonder she got sometimes, when she saw him laughing and swinging one of the village children up onto his shoulders, or training with Sokka, or smiling sleepily at her in the morning, that he was _hers_.

He didn’t feel like hers now. The smiling, gentle husband she’d known had been replaced with a serious, almost brooding man, who had spent long hours on their journey to the Capital facing west, keeping a vigil for his Uncle.

His Uncle was apparently on death’s door. The family had been summoned back to say their goodbyes, and to watch as Lu Ten was crowned as Fire Lord — the first non-bending Fire Lord in history.

Not even being back on his beloved Wani had cheered Zuko up, and after five years of marriage, Katara had learned just how much her husband loved this beat up old ship and its crazy crew. _Ever since they took me when I was banished, the Wani has been home to those who can’t find a home elsewhere,_ he’d explained one night when Katara had asked him for stories of his time in the Navy, wanting to undo the automatic reaction of pain and hurt she felt whenever she thought of her beloved husband breaking bread with people like those that had killed her mother. _For example, take Crewman Teruko. She was a sergeant in the Army before she was transferred to the Wani, which is weird enough as Army and Navy don’t mix, but she doesn’t have a rank aboard the Wani. At all. Even Sargeant Sushi, our mimic catopus has a rank, but not Crewman Teruko, though she is being paid much, much higher than a demoted sergeant should be paid — or at least she was when I was first on the ship. I initially thought she was a spy for my father, but she’s still on the Wani, and she won’t explain how she got there. The story changes every time — she robbed a bank in Ba Sing Se, she seduced a noblewoman on Ember Island and fought her husband to death in a duel, she stole a ruby from Agni, she stole fire from the dragons, she gave fire to the dragons against Agni’s wishes, she once killed a man with this thumb...no one knows._

_And Medic Satomi — you don’t want to get on her bad side. And Pikesman Kazuto, he’s a strange one — very quiet, and you have to make sure there’s no weapons in reach before you wake him up — but he knows food better than Cook, which just annoys the man, who is on a constant quest to find a food that Pikesman Kazuto has never eaten and can’t identify. He’s the only member of the Fire Nation other than myself that I know has eaten sea prunes, Katara. Sea prunes. Half the time when we were on shore leave he’d be dragging me to the weirdest eating house he could find, including one where I swear the jelly squid’s fronds were still waving as he ate them — which he did. Enthusiastically._

She’d met the crew now, and could put names to faces. They were kind enough — she’d certainly shared enough meals with Pikesman Kazuto to dream of the day she could introduce him to Sokka and watch as they both ate their way into a coma, and Engineer Hanako had a wicked sense of humor and Helmsman Kyo was teaching her the basics of Pai Sho — but there was a sadness about the ship. This wasn’t a pleasure cruise; the Wani was going as fast as she could to make it back to the Capital in time for Zuko to say goodbye.

There were faster ships in the Navy, Katara was sure. There were certainly bigger ones — she’d seen some of them when they’d visited the Southern Water Tribe since peace had been declared — but the Wani had been Zuko’s home, and they’d demanded the right to bring the news to their Prince — and bring their Prince to their Fire Lord.

The mood of the city was somber. Even as a stranger, Katara could tell that. People were quiet, and more than one face was streaked with tears. As they disembarked and were handed into the palanquins that would take them to the Palace, Katara noticed how people kept looking at the great shallow cauldrons placed throughout the city, their flames burning high in the sky.

Occasionally, someone would stop and slip some paper into the cauldron before bowing and moving away.

“They’re prayers to Agni for Uncle’s health,” Zuko said when he noticed her looking, his voice rough with unshed tears. “When his flame burns out, the cauldrons will be snuffed. They will remain dark until Lu Ten is crowned Fire Lord.” 

Katara hoped the cauldrons stayed lit a long time yet. She reached out and took Zuko’s hand anyway, to provide what comfort she could. His hand convulsed around hers, desperately taking the comfort he couldn’t take more publicly.

* * *

The Palace was huge. Their entire village at the South Pole could have fit inside it, easily, and had room to spare. 

They had a suite — a suite! — full of rooms Katara could see no purpose in. There was a dressing room, and a sitting room, and a dining room, and a whole bunch of other rooms she couldn’t even name. She did like the library though, and the bed was perfect.

She just wished she was there under better circumstances. 

Even Lu Ten’s children had picked up on the mood, their large eyes sober as they watched the adults in their lives. Katara often found herself spending time with Lady Mizumi and her children in the various gardens of the Palace, keeping themselves out of the way. More and more nobles were arriving at the Palace every day for sober consultations with Prince Lu Ten — consultations that Zuko and Prince Long Feng were invited to, but not Princess Azula.

Katara watched as lightning seemed to spark inside Princess Azula’s eyes every time she was turned away from these councils, and wondered if a massive mistake was being made. Princess Azula had little time for Lady Mizumi and Katara — she’d greeted them politely enough when she and her husband had arrived from Ba Sing Se, but wasn’t exactly close to them — and Katara wondered what the Princess did all day. The smell of thunderstorms seemed to cling to the Princess’ skin, and Katara hoped she’d be far away when the storm finally broke.

One night, Katara mentioned it to Zuko, and he sighed. “She should be in the councils, I agree. Azula is smart, and a powerful firebender. But Azula is last in line for the throne, and since she’s married to Prince Long Feng, by our laws he has the right to attend councils and speak for her. If she was single she’d have the right to be there by her own merit, but now she’s married...he takes her place.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“I agree,” he said, coming over to where Katara was staring out the window at the moon. “A lot of what goes on here is ridiculous. I’ll be glad when we can go home.”

“I’m glad we came, though,” Katara said softly, resting her hands on Zuko’s arms as they circled around her. “I’m glad I got to meet your Uncle.”

The Uncle Iroh in all of Zuko’s stories had been a cuddly platypus-bear of a man, always cheerfully offering tea and Pai Sho advice to all and sundry, and helping Zuko master his firebending. Under his leadership, the Fire Nation had withdrawn its Army and Navy to its own archipelago, and negotiations were underway for what would become of the colonies — after a hundred years of occupation there were numerous mixed families in the colonies, and some Fire Nation citizens had lived there for generations. It was a mess, and one that Katara wanted to help resolve, but she was a woman of the Water Tribe. There was no place for her in a council between the Fire Nation and the Earth Kingdom.

The Uncle Iroh that Katara met was frail. She could tell he’d lost a lot of weight quickly, and his memory was starting to fade. He’d drift off partway through a sentence, seemingly confused about what he was saying, then start again. Katara had heard the same few stories from him every time she’d visited — his wife had also loved wearing beads in her hair, apparently, and he’d tell the story about how he’d asked the best carver in the Capital to carve her some out of rubies and diamonds whenever he saw Katara.

Zuko had asked her if she could heal Uncle, and with the old man’s permission, had examined him, but this wasn’t an illness. Wasn’t a sickness.

This was old age, and the fullness of time, and the natural end of a man who had lived a long life, and there was nothing that Katara could do. Nothing that any of them could do, other than keep Uncle comfortable, and listen to his stories, and pray.

* * *

Katara was visiting one of the markets in the Capital when it happened. Katara and Lady Mizumi had taken to visiting the city when her children were in lessons — “you have no children of your own yet, Katara?” “No, Zuko and I want to wait a bit longer. We’re enjoying our time to ourselves.” — giving alms to the poor and visiting the various quarters of the city. Lady Mizumi was having great fun introducing Katara to various Fire Nation snacks, and Katara vowed to one day feed the Lady sea prunes in revenge for some of the spicy dishes the Lady had offered her with nothing other than innocence in her eyes.

The first thing Katara noticed was the constant ringing of a gong.

The second thing was the snuffing of the flames in the great cauldrons.

The third was the wailing in the streets.

* * *

For all that she had come to love Zuko, Katara would readily admit she still wasn’t the biggest fan of the Fire Nation — and their funerary practices weren’t helping alleviate that dislike.

There was a lot of incense. And chanting. And standing still on hard flagstones under the baking sun. The sun was finally starting to set but the heat was still intense.

The members of the court that were gathered around them didn’t seem to notice or mind the heat, but Katara was ready to melt. It was only her ability to subtly waterbend the sweat away from her skin that saved her from sweating clean through her robes.

The Fire Sages paced in a formation as they chanted yet another prayer, and Katara was jealous that they got to move. She twitched her toes in her shoes, trying to keep the blood flowing through her legs and remain upright.

Beside her, Zuko was stoic, his good eye occasionally filling with tears as he murmured along to some of the passages the Fire Sages were chanting. In front of her, Lu Ten’s back was absolutely straight, showing none of the pain in public that he’d revealed to his family.

It was so strange to her. Water Tribe funerals were shorter, and less ceremonious. More natural. Whereas Zuko and his family had mourned, and wept, and told stories and laughed and remembered Iroh together over the last few nights; had regaled Katara, Mizumi, and Long Feng with tall tales and had painted a picture of a man who had a heart big enough for the whole world — and enough tea and patience to listen to the whole world’s problems. Katara had only met Iroh once or twice, when he was already on his deathbed, and listening to the stories his family told of him she was sad she hadn’t met him earlier. He seemed wonderful and kind and funny.

Everything this funeral was not, and she still couldn’t quite wrap her head around the duplicity of the Fire Nation — to be human in private, but to be stoic and unemotive in public. Still, she wasn’t here to judge, but rather to support Zuko and represent the Southern Water Tribe, and so she kept her mouth shut and her face impassive.

The Fire Sages changed the pattern they were walking in — if it had been more dynamic, Katara would have been tempted to call it a dance — and the tune they were chanting changed. It was another slow, mournful dirge, and Katara was honestly wondering how they remembered all the words when the fires ringing the courtyard went out.

All of them.

Katara hadn’t realised that night had fallen already. She felt Tui’s power surge through her veins, and while her instincts told her to move, Katara wasn’t sure she should trust them.

The Fire Sages fell silent, and Katara could hear the sounds of people shifting with uncertainty around her, and an odd whistling noise, like the sound the wind sometimes made across the tundra. Beside her, Zuko frowned. “That’s not right,” he murmured, but before Katara could ask what wasn’t right the fires ringing the courtyard exploded into life, even higher this time, making it seem like it was high noon once again.

And then the dragons came roaring over the walls of the Palace, their red and blue forms shifting as they flew in intricate patterns above the funeral.

“I didn’t know there were any dragons left!” Katara yelled into Zuko’s ear, hoping he could hear her over the noise of the great dragons ripping through the sky.

“I didn’t know either! Uncle was supposed to have killed the last one! That’s why they called him the Dragon of the West!” he yelled back, his hand seizing hers.

With heavy thumps the two dragons hit the ground on either side of the bier holding Iroh’s body, scattering the Fire Sages as they did so. They bared their teeth, and released huge gusts of fire that formed a tornado around the bier.

Katara squinted. It looked like the fire was made of all different colours, in between all the red and yellow and orange. She swore she could see blue, and green, and purple in there.

“I understand,” Zuko said softly beside her, but Katara couldn’t drag her eyes away from the flames in the courtyard to ask him what he understood.

The flames receded, and Iroh’s body was gone. A glittering light rose from the bier, and flew into the heavens. They watched as the light broke up and formed stars — stars in a pattern that even Katara could see resembled a dragon.

Iroh’s spirit, it seemed, was to take it’s rest as a celestial dragon. Katara was amused to see that his spirit had settled in the west of the night sky, and beside her, Zuko stifled a sob.

“That’s just showing off, Uncle,” Zuko muttered, and Katara grinned, squeezing his hand in amusement and support.

In the courtyard, the dragons tipped their heads to the sky and flamed once again — this time a more normal looking flame, before taking to the sky once again, disappearing into the gloom as the fires surrounding the courtyard settled back to their normal height.

The scattered Fire Sages looked utterly befuddled. “The ceremony’s only half over,” Zuko muttered and Katara wondered if they’d even bother finishing it. The dragons had rather stolen the show — and Iroh’s body.

* * *

Katara stifled a yawn as the Fire Sages droned on and on. Again.

 _Why are all the Fire Nation ceremonies so long? And so boring?_ she wondered. Dragons were unlikely to provide a distraction today and bring Lu Ten’s crowning ceremony to an early close as they had with the funeral the previous day, and Katara didn’t even have her husband for company.

He was up on the dais with Lu Ten and Azula. 

“The crowning...it’s only for family,” Zuko had explained awkwardly. “For Fire Nation royalty. I’m sorry Katara, I wish you could be up there with me, with us, because you are family, but -”

She’d cut him off with a kiss. She was quite happy not to be a formal part of the ceremony. She didn’t have to chant anything, hold a sacred object up for long periods of time, or stand in the baking sun without a hat. Mizumi would be crowned separately in a smaller ceremony later, apparently. 

For the crowning of Lu Ten, she was nothing more than an honoured foreign visitor, and was standing with a collection of representatives from the Northern Water Tribe and nobles from the Earth Kingdom off to the side of the courtyard — and fortunately, under a shade cloth.

The drums that had underscored the ceremony changed tempo, and the Head Sage held the Fire Lord crown high above Lu Ten’s head.

 _Finally!_ Katara thought, thoroughly sick of Fire Nation pageantry that required her to stand for long periods of time on hard stones.

Then everything changed when the Earth Kingdom attacked.


	5. Hesitancy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Mendacants are from Jacqueline Carey’s “Kushiel’s Dart”, a fantastic book that I adore, though I have taken some liberties with them!

The rock was hard against his wrists, and though Zuko tried to use his fire to escape, he couldn’t make it hot enough to melt the stone without burning himself.

He’d tried.

Rock glittering with fire circled the courtyard where Azula sat on her throne, Prince Long Feng sitting beside her and staring at her with an adoring expression.

“Oh, Dum Dum. Stop it. You’re not getting free.”

“Azula — why?”

“Because I’m the better firebender, Zuko. The Fire Lord can’t be a non-bender — that’s preposterous. How can Agni’s light shine upon someone who is not graced by Agni with the sacred fire? I half thought you’d challenge for the throne, but I guess you’re having too much fun penguin-sledding with your little savage. Anyway, what’s done is done. The old man killed our father, and now I’ve taken back the throne that was rightfully ours.”

Azula sighed. “Unfortunately, the Fire and the Earth Sages all agree that I can’t kill either of you — you’re family, after all. And bad things happen to people who kill members of their family — like for example, their niece plotting to overthrow his son with the help of her husband’s secret police. Do you like them, Zuko? They’re called the Dai Li and they have the most wonderful ways of keeping people under control. Truly inspiring.”

“There is no war in Ba Sing Se,” Long Feng intoned, his voice oddly empty. “And Queen Azula is the best thing for the Earth Kingdom.”

“You’re doing this because Uncle killed father in an Agni Kai? Uncle was the older brother and Grandfather’s heir anyway! Father stole Uncle’s throne! It was never ours to have!”

“It was ours to have as we are the better firebenders — as evidenced by the fact that Lu Ten is a non-bender. He should have been drowned at birth, but Uncle was too soft-hearted to do what needs to be done. But I’m not. The old man humiliated our family, murdered our father then sold me to the mud people and you to a bunch of savages at the end of the world. So I’ve done what he never could. I’ve captured Ba Sing Se, and imprisoned King Kuei. I rule now. I’m the Fire Lord and the Queen of the Earth Kingdom. I’d keep you both around as reminders of how glorious my victory is, but I don’t feel that kind. Guards! Take them away.”

* * *

Katara hesitated. It seemed wrong to leave them here. The twins were only five, and Prince Roku was not much older. They were her family. _Zuko’s_ family, and she couldn’t shake the fear that she was leaving them unguarded.

Which was ridiculous, of course.

Katara was unsure how she’d managed to survive Azula’s attack, but she had. She’d seen Zuko’s little sister throw lightning at Lu Ten and snatch the crown from above him, jamming it onto her own head as her Earth Kingdom soldiers caused the very flagstones of the courtyard to rise up and do their bidding. Long Feng had drawn his sword and advanced on Lady Mizumi, only to be stopped by Katara, while Zuko had hurtled to his cousin’s side to protect him from further attacks.

The last thing Katara had seen as she’d been pulled from the courtyard was earthbenders piling rocks onto Zuko, slowly crushing his fire until there was nothing left.

Katara was just thankful that Lieutenant Jee and some of the crew of the Wani had been guarding the ceremony and had been able to get her out.

She’d felt like a coward running — she wanted to stay and fight — but she couldn’t feel any water nearby. Instead, she would do what water has always done — find another way.

Somehow Lady Mizumi and her children had also been found by the crew of the Wani, and in the chaos the little ship had pulled out of the harbour, the uncrowned Fire Lady and her children on board.

Katara had suggested they make for the Southern Water Tribe, thinking they’d be safe there, but the crew of the Wani had disagreed. It was too obvious that that was where Katara would run to. They’d do nothing but bring danger to her people.

Lieutenant Jee had been the one to come up with an answer: The Western Air Temple. “We went there with Prince Zuko, right after he was banished. It’s quiet. Abandoned. And easily defendable.”

Lady Mizumi had given her agreement, and it was settled: they headed north to the Western Air Temple. The Wani was berthed in a small, hidden harbour, and it took the group two days to hike up to the Temple.

When they’d scrambled their way down to the Temple hanging underneath the cliff, Katara had wondered how they were going to defend it. Katara knew enough about warfare from her father’s stories to know that having solid, defensible rock at your back was good, they were still a small group, up against what was presumably the might of the entire Earth and Fire Armies.

“We’ll use the airbenders,” Lieutenant Jee had said calmly, and Katara had been confused. The last airbenders had been slaughtered a hundred years ago.

Lady Mizumi had sighed. “How did you know?”

Crewman Teruko raised her hand. “I can see auras. Benders have distinct auras — and I’ve never seen ones like the twins before. Also, I’ve watched them playing. They jump too high and too far.”

“You want five year olds to defend us?” Katara had gasped in shock. “They’re five!”

“I want airbenders to defend their home,” Jee had responded. “The Western Air Temple was taken through trickery. We won’t let the same thing happen again. We’ll stay small, and quiet, and if the worst comes to pass, the twins can use the air currents in the ravine.”

“They’re only five! It’s not right!”

“They’re the only two airbenders left in the world, and they’re Lu Ten’s children! There’s nowhere for them to be safe. At least here we have a chance.”

“They aren’t the only ones,” Fire Lady Mizumi said softly. “My aunt is also an airbender. There’s a few, scattered here and there throughout families who had Air Nomads marry into them. Mostly we’re firebenders, but every once in a while...an airbender emerges. Like the family nose. Only more...flighty.”

“Where is your aunt?”

Mizumi sighed. “I don’t know. The Air Nomads were called that for a reason — they don’t like staying in one place. My aunt is constantly going where the breeze takes her. I was hoping she’d come to the Palace one day, and I could ask her to train the twins. Then maybe we could announce to the world that the Air Nomads weren’t all gone — and that some of them had even come from Sozin’s line. That despite his genocide, the fourth element still lives. Balance is still possible.”

“We should see if we can find other Air Nomads,” Medic Satomi said. “The children should be trained, and Lady Katara is right. It’s not right to ask children to defend us.”

“But...I thought we were going to get Zuko back,” Katara said. That goal seemed to be slipping away with every word spoken.

Lieutenant Jee’s armour creaked in distress. “I want to get Zuko back as well, but we can’t leave the children untrained, and we can’t take them with us to break him out of prison.”

“Then I’ll go! I’ll get Zuko out of prison, and I’ll find Lu Ten, and we’ll take the throne back and end the fighting once and for all.”

“He’s most likely imprisoned at Boiling Rock — it’s on an island in the middle of a boiling lake. How will you get him out? No one has ever escaped.”

“I’m a waterbender. A boiling lake holds no challenge for me.”

Fire Lady Mizumi had cried when she’d realised that Katara was determined to go, but Katara couldn’t stand by while her husband rotted away in a Fire Nation prison. She would get him out, and she would see justice done. She was water.

She would find a way.

* * *

It wasn’t hard for Katara to get to the volcanic island that Boiling Rock was on — a small skiff was more than enough to take on the ocean for a master waterbender.

But how to get into the prison itself? And how to locate Zuko, and get him out? Not for the first time, Katara wished Sokka was with her. He’d always had the best plans.

But Sokka wasn’t with her, and Katara couldn’t afford the time to fetch him. Boiling Rock was relatively close to the Western Air Temple — the South Pole wasn’t.

Katara had landed her skiff in a small bay then hiked around the island. There was precious little cover over most of the island, and only one small town on the entire island — a town protected by a fort over the road that ran up to the lip of the volcano.

A fort that looked like it could see every inch of the road as it snaked its way up the volcano.

She slumped. _Tui and La, please help your daughter,_ she prayed, hoping the spirits would hear and be kind.

She turned away from the town and looked out over the ocean, where her eyes were caught by a ridiculous ship. It was painted with a dazzling array of bright colours and even the smoke coming out of its chimneys was more colourful than the usual dark grey she was used to seeing from Fire Nation ships. Cheerful banners were hung along its sides and a glittering figurehead shone at its bow.

Zuko had told her stories of ships like this. _Mendacants!_ she thought with joy. They were travelling storytellers and performers. They’d never come as far south as the South Pole, but Zuko had run into several different ships and companies of them during his travels around the world and spoke highly of them.

 _Tui and La, thank you,_ Katara prayed. If the Mendacants were coming to this island, it was likely they would travel to the prison. Katara could hide among them.

* * *

There was no way Katara could hide among this group. Her skin was a good two shades darker than anyone else’s, and she couldn’t sing, or dance, or play an instrument…

 _I am water. I will find a way,_ she thought to herself, and watched from the shadows as the group entertained the townspeople and guards of the fort. At one point, several of them donned the thick makeup of a traditional opera company, including a few of the women amongst them, and Katara knew she had her way.

The next morning, the Mendacants hitched their bightly-coloured wagons to their ostrich-horses, and Katara slipped aboard one of them — one she’d identified as belonging to one of the women who had worn the thick makeup the night before. She searched the wagon and discovered that yes, the makeup was there — and so were weapons.

Lots of weapons.

 _By the stars,_ Katara thought. _What is going on here?_

She was so lost in her puzzlement over the arsenal that was hidden under the bed that she didn’t have time to hide when the door opened and the owner of the wagon arrived.

Katara panicked, and did the first thing that came to mind — reaching for her bending. _Blood is like water, right?_ she thought as she reached out for the liquid in the woman, causing her heart to slow and the woman to sink into unconsciousness. Katara caught her before she could fall, and carefully pulled her inside the wagon. She felt awful about what she’d done, but the woman was still breathing, and Katara was determined to get Zuko back. She whispered her apologies to the woman as Katara quickly stripped her of her outfit, copied her hairstyle, and tied the woman up under the bed with a gag in her mouth. She applied the makeup as well as she could, being largely unfamiliar with the thick white paint and red eyeshadow, and hoped it would be enough to fool the guards.

Really, she should have been more worried about the other members of the troup.

* * *

Katara startled as the large man swung up beside her on the wagon’s front seat.

“Here, Li-chun, I’ll drive,” he said. “I know you and Peony don’t get along.”

Katara just smiled, her heartbeat going rabbithawk fast in her chest and hoping that she wasn’t going to be discovered. Not when she was so close.

Not when Zuko was just over that ridge.

She handed the reins over to the man and they joined the line of wagons making their way up the hill. They drove in silence for several minutes, until they’d left the fort behind.

“So who are you?” the man asked softly, and Katara froze. “I know you’re not Li-chun, because the woman who owns this wagon is not Li-chun. It’s Chun-li. And she hates that stage makeup and never wears it for longer than she has to. So again, I ask, who are you?”

“I’m Katara, of the Southern Water Tribe,” she admitted quietly.

“Did you hurt Chun-li?”

“No, she’s fine. Just sleeping. I need to get into the prison.” Katara wasn’t sure why she was being this honest, but she figured she had nothing to lose at this point.

Also there were all those weapons under Chun-li’s bed. Katara had never seen so many pointy bits of metal in one place — and she’d been at the Palace when it was under attack.

“Why do you need to get into the prison?” the man asked. Katara noted he still hadn’t shared his name.

“My husband is imprisoned there. I want to get him out.”

The man whistled lowly. “A man from the Southern Water Tribe imprisoned at Boiling Rock? He must be dangerous. What makes you think you’ll be able to get him out?”

Katara uncapped the waterskin that hung by her waist and coaxed a tendril of water into the air before her. “I’m a master waterbender. The boiling lake won’t stop me.”

“It might not, but the lava might,” the man commented dryly. He reached into his pocket and produced a pebble. “Fortunately, I can take care of that,” he said, and the pebble melted and turned into lava. Still controlling the ostrich-horse with one hand, he lavabended with the other, causing the molten rock to flow in a series of elaborate shapes above his hand. “I’m Satoshi. Actor, playwright, tsungi-horn player extraordinaire. And I gather we are going to Boiling Rock with the same goal in mind. They took my wife. I want her back. We can collect your husband at the same time.”

* * *

Katara was terrified. She’d never been in a riot before, and somehow it was much scarier than the attack on the Palace had been.

She guessed because this time, she’d helped start it.

And this time, she wasn’t protected by a squadron of trained naval officers, but rather a Mendicant troup, half of whom seemed to think a riot was an acceptable place to strike up a song.

Except, as Katara sheltered and watched the band, she realised that they were slowly parading around the walkway above the prison yard — and knocking over and disabling all the guards they came across. She watched as a tiny old woman swung her appols and smacked a guard in the groin with them, seemingly by accident as she turned in time with the melody, and Katara realised that perhaps the Mendicants knew what they were doing after all.

Which left her to find Zuko.

She didn’t see him in the yard — and after all their years together, she knew she’d be able to find him in any crowd.

The Warden came storming past her hiding place and Katara reached out her waterbending, feeling his blood moving through his body, and sent him to sleep. He crashed to the ground, but unlike with Chun-li, Katara didn’t try and catch him before his face could hit the stones. She grabbed the keys from his belt and raced up the stairs to the cells higher up the prison. “Emizi? Emizi?” she called as she reached each cell, but there were no women in any of the cells — and no Zuko.

Eventually, right at the top of the prison, she found Lu Ten. “What are you doing here?” he breathed as Katara fumbled with the keys, trying to work out which one would fit the lock.

“I’m here to get Zuko out,” she said. “I can’t find him in any of the cells!”

“They took him a few days ago,” Lu Ten said as Katara found the right key and let him out. “I don’t know where he’s gone. They’d kept him in the coolers for days, and then he was gone.”

Katara could barely understand what Lu Ten was saying as they ran for the exit. Zuko was gone? Gone where?

* * *

The dark was getting to him. This cell was dark, and cold, and damp, and Zuko felt his fire slowly guttering inside him. It had been weeks since he’d seen Agni’s light, weeks since he’d felt the sun reflected by his own flame.

He wondered if soon there’d even be any fire left in him. Or was he just going to die down here? Alone, locked in a cell of cold metal, forgotten?

Azula hadn’t even come to gloat. That wasn’t like her.

He’d tried to fight his way out at first, but he’d been kept chained, and the guards frequently knocked him unconscious on the journey. And now he was chained to a spike in the middle of the floor, with only enough chain to get to the bucket they’d left him.

They hadn’t fed him in several days. He hadn’t needed the bucket much.

The heavy metal door creaked open and Zuko slammed his eyes shut, even the small amount of light from the torches outside the door hurting his eyes. A body tumbled into his with an ‘oof!’ and they were left in the dark again.

Carefully, Zuko reached out his hands and lifted the other person off him. They felt small, and female. Zuko summoned what was left of his flame and coaxed a small light to form above his palm. “Are you okay?”

“Just peachy,” the girl said, her face pale and her hands and feet covered in dirt. “So what did you do get put in one of these extra special all-metal cells?” she asked as she slid backwards until she found the wall to rest against. “No, wait, what did you do to get _chained up_ in one of these extra special all-metal cells? That’s a more interesting question.”

Zuko shrugged. “I’m Fire Lord Azula’s elder brother.”

The girl smiled. “That would do it. And she’s not Fire Lord anymore — she’s dubbed herself the Phoenix Empress. There was a big ceremony and everything. Very fancy.”

“You saw it?”

“I tried to destroy it.”

“Which would be why you’ve just been tossed into one of these extra special all-metal cells,” Zuko said, and the girl smirked proudly.

“Got it in one, Sparky. I guess they figured that I couldn’t bend through metal.”

“No one can bend through metal.”

The girl flexed her fingers and stood. Even in the low light Zuko could see that she was much, much shorter than him. 

“A wise man once told me that if you open your mind, you will see that all the elements are one — four parts of the same whole. Even metal is just a part of earth that has been purified, and refined.”

“So what?” Zuko asked.

“So I’m the greatest earthbender in the world. And I can sense the earth in this metal. Which means I can bend this metal.” She tossed her hair back and reached out for the chain that attached Zuko to the spike in the floor. He watched by the stuttering light of his flame as she grasped one of the links and achingly slowly pulled it apart.

Zuko nearly let his flame go out in shock. He was free. 

“Toph, you rule!” the girl crowed. “I _am_ the greatest earthbender in the world! Come on Sparky, let’s get out of here.”

Without hesitation, the girl turned and punched her hands into the metal wall of the cell. The metal buckled around her fists and for the first time since the attack on the Palace, Zuko felt hope.


	6. Affirm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so, so sorry. My muse disappeared and my laptop broke (twice!) and I just could not get this chapter done. But it's done now :D

Katara sighed and washed the makeup off, watching as the Painted Lady drained away to reveal just plain old Katara.

Another prison down, and still no Zuko.

She’d also destroyed another oil refinery that was polluting a local river and sorted out that drainage system so the villagers could use all of their farmland again, but if Katara was being honest with herself, that didn’t matter as much to her as Zuko did.

It had helped that all of the prisoners in this prison were earthbenders and Earth Nobles, obviously sent there for fighting against the Fire Nation. Though given the amount of attitude they’d given her, Katara wished she could have left some of them in the prison when she’d flooded it.

_Especially that Lao Beifong,_ she thought. _Stars above, what a prick._

But the Painted Lady didn’t speak, and Katara would never turn her back on someone who needed help, even if they were unpleasant Earth Kingdom nobles.

It had been Chun-li who had given her the idea. “My village, Jang Hui, was watched over for years by a spirit called the Painted Lady. She had an affinity for water, and loved the river. She was a villager who lived hundreds of years ago, and after she died, she transcended to the Spirit World. But during the war, the Fire Nation Army built a factory on our river and started to pollute it, and in the end the Painted Lady was driven away.”

Chun-li dug through her things and found a little statuette of a woman with striking red and white makeup and a large hat. “This is the Painted Lady. You can’t walk the Earth Kingdom as yourself, breaking in and out of prisons to get Zuko back. You’ll be caught, and your people punished by the Phoenix Empress —”

“If they haven’t already been,” Katara muttered, and Chun-li had waved her hand in a ‘yes, yes’ motion.

“— but you can walk the Earth Kingdom as the Painted Lady. Follow the rivers, find your husband — and fix what you can. My people have suffered under the Fire Nation. No one is happy with the Empress’ decision. But if you walk the land, and speak the truth — that the Fire Nation doesn’t want this, that this is one woman’s madness, that Lu Ten is alive and will take back his crown and give the Earth Kingdom back their freedom — then people will listen.”

“And we will gain allies,” Lu Ten had said. “We need allies. I don’t know how much of the Army and Navy is with Azula, and how much remains loyal to me.”

“We can spread the word as well,” Satoshi had suggested. “No one spreads gossip and misinformation like the Mendacants — it’ll be nice to spread truthful rumours for once.”

That had been four weeks ago and Katara had slowly been working her way into the Earth Kingdom ever since. _If only this place wasn’t so big!_ Katara grumbled, not for the first time.

Fortunately, Earth Kingdom towns and cities were generally clustered around rivers or on the shore — as were the prisons, and factories, and military bases. She hadn’t meant to destroy the first prison, but when she’d found the tortured bodies of Northern Water Tribe waterbenders...Katara had lost her mind.

By the time she had found it again, the prison was sliding into the ocean and the soldiers who had tried to stop her were dead. In her rage, Katara had pulled their blood out of them, and they lay as dried husks on the ground with puddles of blood around her.

Ever since then, she’d tried to be more careful. She hadn’t killed anyone, merely left them with some interesting headaches, and she’d disguised her mission by attacking other structures too.

_I really need to talk with Lu Ten about the Fire Nation’s pollution problem,_ she thought as she unearthed her satchel from where she’d hidden it and settled down to her dinner of cold bread and cheese. _We have to do better. We need to tread lightly on this world, or they’ll be nothing left in a generation or two._

* * *

Zuko liked to think he was well versed in terrifying women. Katara’s temper was legendary amongst the Southern Water Tribe, and well, Azula…

The women he’d sailed with on the Wani were also not to be trifled with, and Zuko figured this would stand him in good stead with any terrifying woman he would ever come across.

Toph Beifong was the most terrifying woman Zuko had ever met. It made him miss Katara even more, somehow. He was sure they would be great friends.

It had taken him three days after their break out to work out that she was blind. Three days! And that was only because he’d handed her something to read and she’d handed it back to him and waved her hand in front of her eyes. “I’m blind, Sparky. Find someone else to read your magic brush strokes.”

They’d decided to make their way south through the Earth Kingdom, hoping that once they reached the south they’d be able to find a way to the South Pole, where Zuko thought Katara would have returned.

He hoped she’d gone home to the Southern Water Tribe. He hoped she was safe.

Zuko had hoped their trip through the Earth Kingdom would be a sneaky one. He was good at sneaky, and given Toph’s uncanny abilities to sense people coming their way, they should have been able to avoid people the entire way south.

Toph, it turned out, had a different idea.

Toph Beifong was gathering an army. 

“But...the war’s over,” he’d tried to protest. “The Fire Nation ended it.”

“The Fire Nation retreated, refused to acknowledge that they had lost, sent a viper into King Kuwei’s court, then took us over again,” Toph had snapped. “Your uncle may have sent your sister to us as a gesture of peace, but...that’s not what happened. So this time, we’re going to win. The war isn’t going to end because the Fire Nation gets tired and goes home — it’s going to end when the Earth Kingdom and the Water Tribes stand up and force the Fire Nation to acknowledge that what they’ve done is wrong. The other nations aren’t just toys for the Fire Nation to use and toss aside at their pleasure!”

In the end, he’d gotten more information out of some of the others that Toph had rallied to their cause. Despite her atrocious manners, Toph Beifong was the daughter of the Governor of Gaoling, an area that had been left largely untouched during the war as it lacked any strategic importance or key trades. However, Azula hadn’t been willing to let any part of the Earth Kingdom remain independent, and had imprisoned the Beifongs. 

His sister had ordered the death of his friend’s parents. He wasn’t sure there were enough apologies in the world for it, and when he’d tried to apologise, Toph had thrown boulders at him.

“Words are nothing, Sparky!” she’d yelled. “Saying sorry doesn’t fix anything! Fixing things fixes things, so stop wasting your time on pretty words and help me free my people!”

Zuko really missed Katara.

* * *

_So these are the famed walls of Ba Sing Se,_ Katara thought as she approached the city. The fading afternoon sun made the Fire Nation banners hanging from it’s walls glow with inner fire, and not for the first time, Katara missed her husband. 

As much as she wanted to hate the Fire Nation for what it had done to her family and to the Earth Kingdom, Katara found that she couldn’t. At the end of the day, they were just...people. There were good people and bad people in every community, and Katara was learning to see that the bad didn’t define a community. Especially when the good were actively fighting back.

Everywhere she’d gone she’d found pockets of resistance — earthbenders fighting back against Azula’s forces, and firebenders whose families had been in the Earth Kingdom for years now also fighting to keep their friends and communities safe. Mixed families of firebenders and earthbenders, sometimes producing lavabenders like Satoshi, but also several tribes of sandbenders and on occasion, hidden very, very carefully by their families, airbenders, just as Lady Mizumi had said.

Katara realised it made sense. Nuns and monks didn’t have children, and the Air Temples weren’t the only places airbenders lived — they were just the spiritual centres for the Air Nomads. The Air Nomads had travelled the world, going where the wind took them — having their own families, living their own lives; and going into hiding when the Fire Nation attacked.

The airbenders still existed. New ones were being born all the time. Even the Fire Nation couldn’t destroy an entire element — especially when no one understood what made some people benders, and some not. Neither of Katara’s parents had been benders, and her brother wasn’t, but Katara was. Only the spirits knew who would be a bender within a family — and the spirits weren’t sharing that information.

On her travels across the Earth Kingdom, Katara had met many people — some foolish, some wise, and some who were somehow both. High in the mountains she’d found an old wise woman who seemed to live on nothing but mushrooms and air, who had spouted the most profound insights after digesting a horrifically stinky mushroom that Katara refused to touch. “An element cannot be destroyed. You cannot destroy an element. The four elements are in everything — even in water, there is earth, and air, and fire. Air cannot be destroyed, and nor can water, nor fire, nor earth. They are forever, and forever changing. They can shift, and the balance shifts, but it is never destroyed.”

She’d spent a lot of time thinking about that, in the quiet of nights spent under the stars. It was easy for her to understand earth as part of water — whether as goopy as mud or the little bits of earth she could feel in all water — and air was easy to grasp, as there were always pockets of it in water — Katara had used her waterbending skills to create a bubble around her head to allow her to swim long distances underwater without rising more than once — but the idea of fire as part of water had puzzled her.

Fire and water were opposites. It’s what she’d always been told; what she’d always believed. Where one existed, the other could not — either water would extinguish the fire, or fire would boil away the water.

Firebenders used their own fire; waterbenders used the water around them.

But that wasn’t exactly true, Katara realised. After all, water was inside people in the form of blood, and Katara had bent it. And Zuko had demonstrated how he could drain the heat from an infected wound and move it around the injured person’s body, without taking the heat into himself.

Zuko was also good at creating other types of heat, and Katara smiled to herself as she remembered their wedding night. “Four times,” she whispered to herself with a smile. 

While her mind had been lost in thought, her eyes had been busy scanning the walls of Ba Sing Se, looking for what she knew would be there.

The Fire Nation had attacked the walls of Ba Sing Se, flinging fire at it — fire that the city had defended with water.

And the reservoirs of water threaded through the walls were still there.

* * *

The walls of Ba Sing Se had resisted Iroh for 600 days. 

Katara destroyed them in less than 6. 

Water always finds a way.

* * *

Zuko fought to hide a grin as Toph terrified Lieutenant Jee into submission, his armour creaking alarmingly every time the tiny earthbender moved so much as a finger. 

“Where did you say you found her again?” Sokka asked, his voice quiet, but Zuko knew that Toph could still hear them.

Toph could hear _everything_.

“She broke me out of the secret prison beneath Lake Laogai then dragged me on a life-changing field trip in which she gathered the army you see before us and used me as a scribe to dictate new trade deals for her home district for once Azula is toppled from her throne?”

“Why is that a question?”

“Because that’s what I think she did, but she was probably doing 10 other things at once that I didn’t notice because I was too busy moping.”

“You? Zuko? Moping? I don’t believe it.”

“Oh, believe it, Snoozles,” Toph said as she walked over to them; behind her, Lieutenant Jee most-definitely-did-not-flee-but-walked-very-fast back to the Wani. “He mopes, all the time. And sighs. And glowers. He’s very boring. Don’t know why I broke him out of that prison.”

“Because you needed a scribe, and you liked the idea of stealing the Phoenix Empress’ brother out from under the nose of the Dai Li?” suggested Zuko, by now well-used to the complaints from Toph that meant she actually liked you.

“Those poor Dai Li agents,” Toph said, her tone completely void of sympathy. “They had no idea how to deal with someone they couldn’t hypnotise.”

“General Beifong,” one of the Kyoshi Warriors ran up and saluted. “The Painted Lady has come. She seeks to join your fight against the Phoenix Empress.”

Toph looked delighted. “Yes!” she cried, and Zuko grinned too. They’d been hearing stories of this Painted Lady for months now; she’d been rampaging through the Earth Kingdom, tearing down factories and Fire Nation structures wherever she went. Toph — through Zuko — had started to leave coded messages for her at various towns for months now, hoping she’d be able to solve them and join their rebellion.

And it seemed it had worked, and Toph would finally get to meet the person she considered an “avatar of destruction and confusion and everything awesome in this world.”

She hurried towards the meeting hall, Sokka and Zuko following behind. When they entered the building, the figure in the flowing robes and large hat turned, and froze.

“Zuko?” she whispered. “Sokka?”

“Katara!” Sokka cried, springing over to clutch his sister tight, while Zuko’s heart did something complicated in his chest and Toph put out a hand to steady him. He watched as Sokka spun Katara around in a circle, holding her tight and whisking her above the ground, hardly daring to believe it was real. Katara was real.

Katara was here.

His wife extricated herself from her brother’s arms and stepped towards Zuko. “Zuko?” she asked, her voice hopeful and breaking all at once, and Zuko pulled her to him tightly, so tightly.

He never wanted to let her go again.

* * *

“Seriously, Sugar Queen,” Toph drawled the next morning when Katara finally managed to slip out of the house Zuko had been staying in. “Four times? Really? Do you not need to sleep?”

* * *

A few weeks later, Lady Mei-feng, a cousin of Mizumi’s, drifted her way onto Kyoshi Island. She had a message from Lu Ten: a comet was going to blaze it’s way through the heavens in two months' time. He would take back his throne then.

* * *

Katara was well aware that she hadn’t seen the Fire Nation Capital under the best circumstances the last time she’d been here, but even a city on edge waiting for the announcement of it’s ruler’s death had been a nicer place than it was now.

Now, the Capital was...empty. Literally. Where Katara remembered seeing shops and houses there were just burned husks, scattered timbers and empty stones. She could sense heartbeats from people hiding around them, but they were the rabbit-quick heartbeats of the frail and frightened, not the bold heartbeats of an army of defenders.

There were hardly any defenders. There’d been a few — the Great Gates of Azulon had been ignited, but as the Airbenders could soar over the top of the net, the Waterbenders could slip underneath it, and the Firebenders could pull the fire from the net and dissipate its heat, even that defence hadn’t amounted to much. A few soldiers on jet skis were dispatched from the naval base at the gates, but rather than attempt to stop the invasion, when the gaunt men and women were captured and brought to Lu Ten, they immediately surrendered.

“Thank Agni,” one of them breathed. “Our prayers have been answered. We’re saved.”

The rest of the city seemed to feel much the same. The few guards they saw dropped their weapons as soon as they spotted Lu Ten at the front of their army, and slowly, the few remaining residents of the city fell in behind them as they marched through the city and up the switchback road to the caldera. 

By the time they reached the Royal Palace it was clear that no one was going to try and stop them.

“So. You come crawling back,” Azula sneered when they arrived in the Throne Room. “Here to beg for your throne back, cousin?”

“Here to take it back by right, cousin. It doesn’t appear to have been kind to you,” Lu Ten said.

Katara agreed. Azula’s hair was a mess, her makeup badly applied...the pretty young woman she remembered from the past was gone now. In her place was something else. Something dangerous.

“If you want my throne, you’ll have to take it from me by force! Agni Kai!”

Lu Ten bowed. “I accept.”

Katara froze. _He’s not a firebender! He’ll die!_

Azula laughed. “Is that the best you can do?” she said as Lu Ten removed his cloak and took up his sword and shield, settling into a fighting stance. “Do you expect to defeat me, the Phoenix Empress, with only a stick? Ha!” she croaked, and threw lightning at her cousin.

He dodged, and darted forward, his sword slicing through Azula’s sleeve.

“Firebenders aren’t normally trained against arms,” Zuko whispered into Katara’s ear. “And Azula certainly wasn’t. We were always told that our fire made us better than nonbenders. That nonbenders would die rather than fight one of Agni’s chosen.”

Lu Ten had obviously found some benders to train against, as he moved with confidence against Azula, slowly backing the Phoenix Queen across the courtyard and using his sword and shield to deflect her brilliant blue fire.

“No lightning today, cousin?” Lu Ten asked as Azula stumbled backwards, her hair flying across her face and obscuring her vision.

“I’ll show you lightning!” she snarled, and her eyes flickered to the side a second before she struck, sending the lightning flying not at Lu Ten —

— but at Lady Mizumi and her children.

They’d expected something like this. Zuko, Katara, Toph, and Mei-feng moved as one, combining their elements to form a shield before the Fire Lady and her children.

Azula’s lightning hit it and shattered into nothingness, leaving only the smell of charred air and Azula’s panting echoing in the courtyard.

“It’s over, Azula,” Lu Ten said firmly, and it was a moment that would be captured in a hundred poems and paintings before the day was done — the Phoenix Empress with lightning sparking around her feet, faced with a nonbender flanked by a Firebender, a Waterbender, an Airbender, and an Earthbender. “It’s over.”


	7. Rebirth

A little over ten years after Azula’s defeat, Katara was sewing a sleep-sack for her third child, currently squirming like a sleepy cat under her ribs. While she worked, she was keeping an eye on Kya, sitting on the floor with a bowl in her lap, making little waves in the water. Both Kya and her brother Iroh were waterbenders. Katara cherished hope that the third would be a firebender like its father, sure the first two had never warmed her so much in the womb.

In her last letter, Toph had insisted the child be named after her if it was a girl. Katara was tempted to name it after her even if it was a boy. She figured the terrifying metalbender would approve either way.

"Mom! Mom!" Iroh burst through the door. "I found something!"

"I thought you were fishing with Uncle Sokka and your father."

"I was, but we came back because I found something!"

"You can't keep it," said the mother of the world's most inquisitive nine-year-old in the voice of long experience.

"Dad said we could." Iroh plumped down on the floor, tugging off his snowy boots.

"Is it fluffy?" Six-year-old Kya abandoned her water to clap her hands.

"No. It's bald. But it's cute!"

Katara was about to demand clarification when Zuko ducked through the low doorway, pushing his parka ahead of him. Well, that was how it looked, until she saw little legs peeking out underneath it and a small round face under the hood. "I'm okay!" the child was saying cheerfully. "Really, the cold doesn't bother me."

"I found him in an iceberg!" Iroh announced proudly. "I got mad at Uncle Sokka because he said waterbending was magic water and I cracked an iceberg and then there was something glowing inside it so Dad helped me make a hole and he came out!"

"And never crack icebergs again. You could have killed us all." Zuko frowned reprovingly at his son as he helped the strange boy wriggle out of the parka.

The boy wearing orange and yellow, with blue arrow tattoos stretching over his head and hands. "Hi!" he said brightly, smiling up at Katara. "I'm Aang."

"You're an airbender," Katara said. This was a surprise. There were still very, very few airbenders in the world, and the South Pole was a long way for one to travel, especially one so young. His clothes were different, too. Lady Mei-feng and the others tended to wear clothes in a similar style to the Fire Nation or Earth Kingdom, reflecting the cultures they had grown up with, though in shades of yellow and orange since their existence had been revealed. These looked like traditional Air Nomad robes, which she’d only seen in drawings. 

"Yup!" The boy frowned. "Everyone keeps saying that like it's a surprise. I guess the airbenders haven't visited in a while, huh?"

Katara met her husband's eyes over the little bald head, and saw the shame on his face for something that had happened nearly a hundred years before he was born. "No," she said gently, touching Aang's shoulder. "Not... not for a while. I'm Katara, by the way. It's nice to meet you, Aang."

He smiled at her in a trusting way that tugged at her heart. "It's nice to meet you too."


End file.
